Do ants hibernate?
Storytime:
I never had ants.
For some reason, the home I grew up in didn’t have ants, (I don’t know what dark magic my mom employed to make this happen) and then, when I moved into my own home, I just kept on NOT HAVING ANTS.
What this means is that I never learnt how to deal with an ant infestation. A couple of years later, I still didn’t have ants, but I did have a perfect little blond haired angel baby and he was a dream and I loved being a mom and not having ants and life was great and ant free…the little angel had his first little bites of finger food, he fed himself bits of banana, I took a million pictures and face timed the whole family form my pristine ant free home. Life was grand!
The ants came marching two by two…
Then, the little angel turned into a demon-nugget, started waddling around, and leaving more crumbs than Hansel and Gretel on their best days. Suddenly, along with smudged windows and Crayola wall art…I HAD ANTS.
Six years later I have more ants than ever.
I have two distinct colonies. The Living Room Raiders (bigger and reddish brown) who live off popcorn crumbs and sticky juice spills in the coffee table, and the Kitchen Gang (tiny and matt black) who survive on lunchboxes left in schoolbags, spilled sugar and half eaten apples but back in the fruit bowl.
With the arrival of a new waddling crumb dispenser who eats whatever her brother drops on the ground, which often means she eats a mouth full of ants, I have had to come up with plans to fight the ants on both fronts.
We don’t do poison.
When I reached out to my mom about my ant free youth and asked for help she simply sent me a picture of a giant can of long lasting super toxic pesticide that was apparently sprayed on anything that couldn’t run away…So NOPE. Not doing that.
Finding an alternative
Next up I went to Google. Here the advice ranged from drowning them to planting all kinds of pungent plants. Both plans might work but I’m not hosing down my living room and pungent lemongrass isn’t my idea of an indoor plant.
There are several things that I have now realised do work. (maybe not as good as the super toxic pesticide, but still worth a try.)
Ants navigate by leaving a pheromone scent trail and you can interrupt this by using a number of household items.
Ants may not like the smell of:
- black and red pepper
- coffee grounds
- white vinegar
- some essential oils, like peppermint, tea tree, and lemon eucalyptus.
Suck it!
Other ways to deal with ants is to sprinkle them with cornstarch so they clump together and then to vacuum them up. Just remember to dispose of them immediately (outside and away from your home) otherwise you’ll just be moving the colony into your vacuum cleaner.
Oily litter bug(gers)
Essential oils like Neem oil, Eucalyptus, Peppermint, Lemon and other strong-smelling oils can all be used to deter ants from moving into your house in the first place. Neem Oil is particularly handy when dealing with ants and pests close to your plants.
Think about the children/owls/cats/geckos.
Before you simply whip out your can of pesticide or spray down your entire yard, think about the impact of your actions on your own loved ones, pets and then the greater food chain of animals. Pesticides have a very long half-life, and just like rat poison can end up killing owls and snakes, ant poison can also have unintended victims.
In the end I have come to terms with my ants.
They disappear in winter, so come spring I almost feel nostalgic about the first ant of the season. Maybe I’m just suffering from Stockholm syndrome, maybe motherhood has made me soft…or maybe, just maybe…ants aren’t that bad.
