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So now the beetles have gone we have ants nests in the lawn ,we had them last year and we tried all the usual things and nothing seems to have cleared them,any ideas ?

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Turn on your sprinkler or hose pipe for a while, then watch the birds come down and peck at the eggs that will inevitably float to the surface.

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Not sure about english ants but here in oz we get infested with the buggers, the best cure is a bait which the workers take to the nest and it kills the queen, which in turn wipes out the nest.

A simple bait is some peanut butter and honey with some borax powder mixed through, takes a few days but works.

Can be put inside a bit of pipe or under a saucer to prevent pets from eating it.

 

The nests you have now are all new colonies from when the flying ants turn into queens and start more colonies, every flying ant has the ability to start a new nest.

Other option I used to do is boiling water down the nest, but that may kill bits of your lawn.

 

Only other action is a pesticide.

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Borax and sugar mixed to a paste with a small amount of water. The ants take the mixture back to the nest and the borax kills them. The sugar is just a bait, ant's can't resist sugar.

 

Ants are a problem stateside, tiny ants named "piss ants" to the largest Carpenter ants that can make a mess of stud walls, to Mexican Fire Ants that hurt like hell if they bite, and they are aggressive!!, then all the different ones in between.

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Fire ants are a pain, literally.   Every time it rains it seems like new hills pop up in the lawn.  I use the commercial fire ant treatment from the hardware store and it does seem to kill that mound but then they just reappear a few feet over.  :angry:

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WE have put boiling water on,then I put bleach on then more hot water.I don't like to be cruel but I hate the little buggers.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you mix borax with sugar and a little water it soon goes hard.  But I like the idea of borax and peanut butter, I'll try that out.  We have lots of different types of ants here in Thailand, but fortunately the large red ones prefer to live outside.

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About 20 years ago we had an ants nest in the wall cavity under the lounge window. Ant bait did not solve the problem. The winged ones would emerge into the lounge at about 3 pm and keep on coming out until about 7 pm. This would happen about every two weeks from July to September. It drove me to distraction as I was worried we may get more nests forming in the house.  It got to the point where I was dreaming about ant attacks! I dreaded summer and this went on for several years. Our son was young at the time and we went to see the film The Borrowers. This provided the solution. There is a part of the film where the nasty man calls in the pest control people to spray the skirting boards and kill the Borrowers. I came out of the cinema with a huge smile thinking of pest control companies! We called them in. My husband had drilled some holes in the wall outside and they put their pesticide in. We put little plastic stoppers in the  holes. They also gave us good advice on ant control and a document stating what they had used. Sorted! After that each year ant proofing liquid is put at the base of the outside walls all around the house. Ants are welcome to live up the garden but not in our house.

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Ant's like sweet things, so mix sugar and Borax into a paste with a little water, put it out in open containers that ants can get into, they will come by the hundreds, each taking some back to the nest. Within a few days you'll notice less and less ants. I gather the borax destroys their abdominal lining. I'm told sugar and borax paste also kills fleas and roaches.

Another variation is honey and borax mix, does the same.

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Sounds like Termites, John.  They fly at certain times of the year.  We had an outbreak in a bathroom.  The Termite guys came and replaced the damaged wood in a window frame, sprayed and no problems since.

 

when working on houses in the UK we would often encounter joists with lots of holes in them.  Always referred to that as woodworm.  I now wonder if the culprits were really Termites.

 

We have Termite insurance.  Helps if you ever want to sell the house.  The guys from pest control inspect the house once a year.  They put bait tubes in the ground to kill the colonies.  They guarantee to fix any Termite damage at no additional charge.  So far so good.

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There are lots of types of wood borers around Dave, but termites are a type of ant. If you look around outside and look for clay runs up walls, they are termites. They make surface trails as they must not dry out.

Usually you will find termite runs near air conditioners, no idea why!!

Leave a piece of untreated wood on the ground for a few days and you'll find some termites feasting on it, they live underground where they keep moist.

Hot humid days are when the queens swarm.

Another critter to watch out for around your house, is Carpenter Ants, big black ants 1/2 inch or longer, thick black shiny bodies. Very destructive!!

I usually find them in dead trees that I cut down, once I split them, usually on cold days I often find a nest of those critters. They chew tunnels in dead wood and live off the wood, they are not partial to just trees either, but will happily devour the studs and plates of your walls!!

If you find one in your house, chances are your house is being devoured!!

 

And mentioning Carpenters, there's the Carpenter bee, it's a loner and chews holes in the end of rafters or any convenient piece of soft wood to lay an egg in. They don't burrow very far, tell tale sign of them, is a lot of saw dust on the ground below their borings. The bee itself looks a bit like a Bumble bee, but hovers a lot, they will only sting if really annoyed, don't kill them, they don't do serious structural damage and are valuable pollinators.

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Yes, we have carpenter bees usually in the very early warm days of spring.  The drill a neater hole than a wood bit into fence posts and other wooden items.  Like you say, they hover a lot.  I don't really like to kill anything, but it's hard to co-habit with some critters.

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