Freshness of bait
TG
observe that there seems to be something of an arc of interest in the
bait.
This is on central-northern California, on the coast between San
Francisco and Monterey. My best do-it-yourself identification of the
ants is that they are Argentine ants.
Using advice I read from John Warner, I mixed a solution of 40% table
sugar, 2-3% borax, and water.
Getting back to the observations:
+ There does not seem to be much rhyme nor reason about whether the
ants will be interested in any given bait station. For example, one
station set near a trail will quickly become heavily visited by
numerous smaller brown worker ants (1/8"), and a few of the larger
black ants (males? 1/4"). Another station, also set near a trail, will
get almost no activity. Maybe one ant will visit the syrup (so a
discover has been made), but no more.
+ There is also this arc of interest I mentioned earlier. When a bait
station is successful, the ants overrun it and the trail feeds into the
station for a number of hours. Eventually, after a day or so, there is
much less activity, even when I refresh or rewet the bait syrup. In
two instances, popular bait stations outdoors (in the form of old
compact discs with blobs of syrup on top) ended up with little activity
on top where the bait was, but underneath there were large numbers of
ants apparently using the platform as shelter.
whitefootedant
with >1% borates, so you might want to add a bit more water to get the
solution down to 1%. You probably will not need to add more sugar.
jw
TG
Regarding the 1% concentration of borates determining preference or
avoidance, is this regardless of the specific borate (borax, boric
acid, etc.)?
What makes borates so toxic to ants? Do ants manage to survive in
regions where borates occur naturally?
whitefootedant
The kind of borate is not significant. I like to use DOT (disodium
octaborate tetrahydrate). The borates seem to affect the insect's water
balance. For more info: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/IN/IN07700.pdf