Ants have an annoying tendency to be almost everywhere. They creep through windows, crawl out of cracks, and stride around as if they own the place!
Getting rid of these ants does become a problem when our home is graced every now and then by a different breed of bugs with a taste for sugar.
Although every ant is an equal opportunist, Ghost Ants are the ones that can be safely labeled as an utter pest—pun intended. People often refer to them as sugar ants because of their love for sweet treats, but that is altogether a different breed that dwells in the wild only.
Ghost ants are small in size as compare to their other cousins, and it makes them almost invisible to the eye. Hence, the term “Ghost”.
These sugar predators with their acute sense of smell can sniff out their food from a mile away. And what could be a better place for them to party than a jar full of sugar?
How Does Ants Infestation Occur
The ant infestation could be from anything; change of weather, afflicted plant, nearest nest, or their long-established residence in your house.
When ants embark on a journey to hunt for food, they leave odorous footprints along the way. In this manner, if the food source is found, their comrades could pick up the scent trail to join their buddy.
This back and forth drill to transport the food to their nest strengthens the path even more. And in no time, you have an ant infestation in your home.
How to Get Rid of Ants
As luck would have it, we have found a solution that is remarkably easy to follow.
Clove is an Asian spice that is used for culinary and medicinal purposes. However, studies show that clove can also be used to repel insects such as ants.
In a study— Toxicity and Repellency of Compounds from Clove by economical entomology journal— the bioactive chemicals in clove were used to gauge their toxicity towards insects. The results indicated “Eugenol” to be the most effective defense against the ants.
Although the study was conducted on fire ants only, from my experience, it worked quite well on your run of the mill ants as well.
Application
Take a couple of whole cloves and put it in your sugar jar. Make sure cloves are scattered enough to cover all areas.
Using Clove essential oil around the jar’s rim is found to be effective too. The scent of the oil will ward off ants. However, the oil’s aroma evaporates after a while; therefore, if you use clove oil, you would have to re-apply it from time to time.
Personally, I would recommend using whole cloves instead of oil, because; if the cloves can do the trick then why buy expensive oil?
Clove may not be a natural ant killer, but it sure does an effective job of repelling them, provided that it is not removed. Thus, keep cloves in the sugar jar all the time even when the infestation is gone.
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