Of all the folk remedies for harmful insects in the house, boric acid is considered the most famous. It was used even when even simple analogues of modern insecticides were not known. And they were used successfully and effectively. The use of boric acid from ants has not lost its relevance today: it still successfully copes with pest squads in a variety of apartments, houses and industrial premises.
How does this tool work and how to use it correctly to really get the desired effect? Let's figure it out.
Boric acid properties
Boric acid is a well-known antiseptic. In the pre-war period, it was used not only for the treatment of open wounds, but also for oral administration.
However, later special studies confirmed that with regular use, boric acid is excreted by the kidneys from the human body more slowly than it enters. And when accumulated to a certain amount, it becomes toxic. The acid was replaced by other, more modern antiseptics, but it continued to be actively used in production.
Boric acid itself is a white, odorless and tasteless crystalline powder, slightly soluble in water. It is widely used in industry and scientific activities, for the preparation of fertilizers, in photography, nuclear energy and much more.
We are also interested in its use against domestic ants.
By the way…
At one time, boric acid was even used in the food industry as an additive E284, but later it was banned from being added to food products.
When reacting with sodium compounds, boric acid forms borax, a salt that is no less dangerous for ants than the acid itself. Due to the similarity of the properties of these substances in different recipes, they can easily be changed from one to another.
You can buy borax and boric acid from ants in almost any pharmacy: they are sold either in powder form or in solutions and are quite inexpensive. However, in order to prepare a sufficient number of baits, it will be necessary to buy several packages or bottles of the substance, since the remedy is available without a prescription.
How effective is boric acid against ants
Boric acid against ants is effective due to the fact that it affects the functioning of its nervous system. After being absorbed in the intestines, it spreads along the peripheral nerves of the ant and causes serious disturbances in the functioning of the nervous system, which, after a few hours, turn into paralysis and death of the insect.
It is interesting that even if the brothers eat the remains of an ant that has fallen from boric acid, the same fate awaits them: a very tiny amount of poison is enough to kill one ant. If you find an ant nest and sprinkle it in a continuous circle with the contents of one bag of acid for 50 rubles, then almost the entire colony will die.
However, if the location of the colony is known, it is easier to destroy it with a vacuum cleaner or boiling water. Only if the anthill is not found, you should "play" with boric acid.
Ant borax works the same way.
Review
“Everyone around buys all sorts of cans from ants for hundreds of rubles, and then they still suffer while they process the apartment with them. On my mother’s advice, I bought five packets of boric acid, scattered it along the baseboards in the kitchen and near the trash can, and generally forgot about the ants.
Xenia, Teplodar
Boric acid for humans: dangerous or not
For humans, boric acid and borax are practically not dangerous. Moreover, they are quite harmless for all domestic animals: this substance has toxic properties primarily on insects. That is why, regardless of whether cockroaches, fleas or domestic ants are present in the apartment, boric acid will be effective against all of them. It poisons only fleas at the larval stage (adults feed only on blood and will not be able to poison).
Boric acid can be toxic to humans only if too much of it is consumed. However, even a whole packet of powder (10 grams) accidentally consumed by a child is unlikely to cause even a very mild allergic reaction. For serious poisoning, you need such a quantity of this drug that is never used to prepare poison from insects.
By the way, the poison itself with boric acid from ants can be prepared according to numerous folk recipes, or it can be used in the form in which it is sold in a pharmacy.
Review
“I thought for a long time and learned how to poison ants with boric acid. Finally, I made up my mind.I was told that it is not even toxic to children. I made baits with glycerin, laid them out behind the refrigerator and in cabinets, for two weeks they gathered dust there. The ants did not completely disappear, but they definitely became less. And then in the pharmacy where I bought the acid, they advised me to sprinkle it in the ventilation duct in the kitchen. Here is the result! Apparently, the ants came from there, because after that I didn’t see any of them at home. ”
Alena, Kyiv
Boric acid and borax against ants are also good because when an insect runs through a scattering of powder, individual grains cling to its paws and travel on them until the pest removes them with its jaws and is poisoned. In the same way, these grains penetrate the nest itself, where they begin to poison even those ants that never leave the colony.
Thus, boric acid allows you to destroy the nest of ants even when the location of the anthill is unknown.
Recipes and rules for the use of boric acid against ants
In the simplest case, boric acid powder in the fight against ants is scattered in the places of the most frequent encounters with insects. Yes, and just under the baseboards, under the cabinets in the kitchen, under the trash can, you can sprinkle it with a remedy in any case: the ants will definitely be here in search of food.
However, it is even more reliable and effective to attract ants to boric acid and force them to either eat it or take it to an anthill so that its relatives can feed on poison. To do this, use several recipes for preparing poison with boric acid from ants:
- 5 grams of borax or boric acid are poured into half a glass of water, then 10 grams of honey or jam and 40 grams of sugar are placed, mixed and poured into a flat dish. It should be placed near the trash can: this bait for domestic ants is very effective, because insects smell sweet very well.
- 2 tablespoons or two egg yolks are mixed with half a teaspoon of borax or boric acid, and small balls are prepared from the resulting mixture, laid out where the ants are most often.
Important!
In the last recipe, you cannot increase the dose of borax or boric acid: the given concentration is calculated on the fact that even if the ant feeds near such a bait, it will have time to take another piece to the anthill before death. One has only to increase the dose, and the worker ants will die right next to the feeder, and the colony will produce new ones at this time.
- in one tablespoon of water, add 2 teaspoons of glycerin, a teaspoon of honey, a third of a teaspoon of borax and 1.5 tablespoons of sugar, carefully move everything and roll baits from the resulting mass. The resulting non-drying balls can be laid out wherever ants can run.
Of course, it is undesirable for pets to find bait and eat it. There is nothing dangerous in this, but no pet will benefit either.
It should be understood that removing ants with boric acid will not work quickly. At best, this process will take two to three weeks. But on the other hand, this method is effective even when the nest of ants is outside the apartment. In such a situation, even the most powerful aerosols will be useless, and simple boric acid or borax will cope.So arm yourself with patience and boric acid, and the ants will very soon bypass your house on a long journey ... If someone from their colony can still walk ...
Preparation of poisoned bait from boric acid and egg yolk
That was a long time ago. A deaf pensioner with poor eyesight lived in the apartment. Cockroaches ran all over the floor and walls during the day. I bought boric acid, mixed it with flour (for smell only) and put it on the floor in saucers in two places. A week later, the cockroaches were gone and we did not see them again.
I confirm the effectiveness of balls from yolks with boric acid. So my mother brought cockroaches in her apartment. It used to be something scary, there were so many of them. Surprisingly, it really did. Sometimes only individual individuals crawl from their neighbors and that's it.
I also had a lot of cockroaches in my house for many years. And what methods have not been tried.But they were saved only by boric acid with yolks in the form of balls, and then they were gone within a month. Although the first 2 weeks after that it seemed that there were a lot more of them, at first they panicked, and then it turned out that they crawled out of the most secluded places and took their legs away.
There were red ants in the apartment, I couldn’t get it out with anything, even terribly expensive and terribly toxic products especially for ants. I bought a bottle of oleic acid, 1 liter, put it in the closet. And there are no more ants anywhere in the apartment. It turned out that oleic acid is a danger signal for ants, and they leave where there is such a smell. The bottle has never even been opened, it is still sealed, although not airtight. And I don’t smell any smell from her, even from under the cap of the bottle itself.
On Wikipedia, they write that oleic acid is odorless, non-toxic to humans at all, and is even found in many edible nuts in amounts up to 50%.
Even though it's an apartment. At the site, apparently, it will be necessary to open a bottle of acid.
Thanks, I'll try.
Your review on many sites and the same thing is written ... Somehow suspicious.
Ants hatched, of course, for a long time, but then they were not remembered for six months.