- 32 minutes ago
Killing the ants you see on the counter won’t end the infestation if the queen is still hidden in the wall, floor, or nest. This calm home pest-control guide explains why spray often fails, how ants use trails to carry food back to the colony, and how a simple bait can reach the root of the problem instead.
Using just powdered sugar and borax in the right ratio, the method shows how to place bait stations along ant trails, avoid the common mistakes that scatter the colony, and wait for the slow bait to work from the inside out. It also covers the warning signs that a larger colony may already be nearby, plus the cleanup habits that help keep ants from coming back.
The video also gives a clear safety reminder: borax should be kept away from children and pets and placed where only ants can reach it. Along with baiting, it stresses sealing cracks, cleaning crumbs, and removing the food sources that invite scouts indoors.
Created for viewers searching for ant control, DIY pest control, home hacks, and how to get rid of ants naturally with a borax and sugar bait. Useful for anyone looking for practical kitchen ant removal, colony elimination, and simple prevention tips for a cleaner, sealed home.
Using just powdered sugar and borax in the right ratio, the method shows how to place bait stations along ant trails, avoid the common mistakes that scatter the colony, and wait for the slow bait to work from the inside out. It also covers the warning signs that a larger colony may already be nearby, plus the cleanup habits that help keep ants from coming back.
The video also gives a clear safety reminder: borax should be kept away from children and pets and placed where only ants can reach it. Along with baiting, it stresses sealing cracks, cleaning crumbs, and removing the food sources that invite scouts indoors.
Created for viewers searching for ant control, DIY pest control, home hacks, and how to get rid of ants naturally with a borax and sugar bait. Useful for anyone looking for practical kitchen ant removal, colony elimination, and simple prevention tips for a cleaner, sealed home.
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00:00You can kill every single ant you see marching across your kitchen counter, every last one,
00:06and it will change nothing, for by morning there are just as many again.
00:12And here is the hard truth of why, the thing that makes all your spraying so much wasted
00:18effort.
00:19The ants you see are not the colony, they are only the foragers, the errand runners,
00:25a tiny handful sent out from a great hidden nest, and deep in that nest, buried in your
00:32wall or under your floor or down in the ground, sits the queen, laying hundreds of new ants
00:38a day, whom your spray never touches.
00:41Kill the runners and she simply sends more.
00:44So the only way to truly end an ant trouble is to reach that hidden queen, and you cannot
00:49spray your way to her.
00:50But there is an old, cheap, clever way to reach her, using the ants own errand running
00:56against them, and today I am going to show you exactly how.
01:00Let me show you.
01:01Here is the thing to understand first, for it is the whole secret and it turns everything
01:06you thought about fighting ants on its head.
01:09When you spray the ants you see, you feel you have done something, but you have only killed
01:14the few messengers, while the queen and the nest live on untouched.
01:18And worse, the spraying scatters the survivors so they break their trail and set up new ones,
01:23and now you have the trouble in three places instead of one.
01:27So spraying the surface is not just useless against the real colony, it can make it worse.
01:32But a bait works the opposite way, and this is the cleverness of it.
01:36Instead of killing the ant where it stands, you give it a poisoned food it does not know
01:41is poisoned, and it carries that food back home on its own legs and feeds it to the whole nest,
01:47the workers, the young, and the queen herself.
01:50The ant becomes your delivery cart, carrying the cure to the very queen you could never reach.
01:56And because it is carried inside to the queen, the whole colony dies from the inside out,
02:02which is the only way an ant trouble truly ends.
02:05Turn the ant's own carrying home against them, and reach the queen you cannot touch.
02:10Now let me give you the way of it.
02:12Quick word before we go further.
02:14My name is Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me, the kind I am sharing
02:20today, and a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit into one video.
02:26I have gathered the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:32If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught
02:37me lives, all in the one place.
02:40Now to the ants.
02:41My grandmother had a saying that fits this exactly, the very same she had for any pest
02:46that comes in numbers, that you strike the root and not the runners, or you labor forever
02:51and never win.
02:52She meant that fighting the part of a trouble you can see, while its source lives on hidden,
02:57is endless losing labor, and the only victory is reaching the root, the source, the queen.
03:04And the ant, with its long trail of runners leading back to a hidden queen, is the very
03:09picture of it.
03:10So here is her kind of root striking, the bait that the runners carry home.
03:15The bait is made of just two plain things, and each has its part, so let me give them
03:20to you.
03:20The first is powdered sugar, the fine, sweet powder, and the sugar is your lure, for an
03:26ant is hardwired to hunt sweet food and to carry it straight home to the nest, so the
03:32sugar is what draws them and what gets your bait carried inside.
03:36The second is borax, that white mineral powder sold in the laundry aisle, used in American
03:42homes for a hundred years and more, and the borax is the quiet weapon, the slow poison hidden
03:48in the sweet, and here is the mixing, and the measure matters greatly, so heat it.
03:53One part borax to three parts powdered sugar.
03:56So if you use one spoon of borax, mix it with three spoons of powdered sugar, and stir them
04:02well together until they are fully and evenly combined.
04:05One part borax, three parts sugar.
04:08That is your bait.
04:09Now why that particular measure, three of sugar to one of borax, and not more borax to kill
04:16them faster?
04:17Here is the clever and important reason, and getting it wrong is the commonest mistake
04:22that makes the whole thing fail.
04:25If you put in too much borax, thinking to kill them quicker, two things go wrong.
04:31First, the ants can somehow sense that something is wrong with it, and they will avoid it entirely,
04:38walking right past your bait as if it were not there.
04:41And second, even if they ate it, a fast poison would kill the forager out on the trail before
04:48it ever got home, which does you no good.
04:52The whole point is a slow poison in an irresistible sweet, so that the ant eats freely, notices nothing,
05:01carries it all the way home, and feeds it round the nest before it, or any of them, takes ill,
05:07a full day or two later.
05:11Slow and sweet reaches the queen, fast and bitter never leaves the counter.
05:17So keep that measure, three sugar to one borax, and do not be tempted to add more borax.
05:26Now how to set it out.
05:28Take a few little flat things, bottle caps or small squares of cardboard or stiff paper,
05:35anything flat and shallow, and put about a spoonful of your bait mixture on each.
05:41These are your bait stations.
05:44Now place them right along the ant trails, directly on the roads you see the ants using,
05:49along the baseboards, under the kitchen sink, by the windows and doors where they come in,
05:56and along the edge of the patio outside, if that is where they run.
06:01You are setting the bait right on their regular route, so the foragers find it naturally as
06:06they go.
06:07Put the stations where the ants already are, on their own roads.
06:12And now the two mistakes that ruin this whole method, which you must not make.
06:18The first, and the hardest to resist, do not spray anything near your bait.
06:24Not the ants on the trail, not the bait stations, nothing.
06:29I know how hard it is to watch ants walking about your kitchen and not reach for the can,
06:35but hear me.
06:36The moment you spray near the bait, you scatter and alarm the colony, break up the trail,
06:43and your bait sits there untouched, the whole thing ruined.
06:47That trail of ants you are itching to kill is not your enemy right now.
06:52It is your delivery system, straight to the queen.
06:56Leave it be, let them find the bait, let them eat it, let them carry it home.
07:02And the second mistake, which makes folk panic and quit too soon.
07:07When you first set out the bait, you will see more ants than before, a great deal more
07:12swarming the bait, and most folk think it is going wrong and give up.
07:17It is the very opposite.
07:20More ants on the bait means more of it being carried home to the queen.
07:24That surge is the method working exactly as it should.
07:28So do not panic, do not spray, do not move the stations.
07:33Within three to five days, you will see the activity start to drop, and within about two
07:39weeks, in most cases, the colony is gone and the trails have vanished.
07:44Let it work its two weeks.
07:46That patience is the whole of it.
07:49Now here is the honest and important safety word, and I must correct something you will often
07:55hear said, for a child's safety is at stake.
07:59You will hear folks say borax is completely safe, a harmless, natural mineral, safe for
08:06the whole household.
08:07That is not quite true, and I will be straight with you.
08:11Borax is a natural mineral, yes, and used with care it is a fine thing.
08:16But it is not safe to eat.
08:18It is harmful, if swallowed, to a child or to a pet, and I have told you this before with
08:24the laundry.
08:25So while the small amount in a bait station is low, you must not treat it as harmless.
08:31Place your bait stations where the ants can reach them, but a child or a dog or a cat
08:36truly cannot.
08:38Under the appliances, behind the furniture, behind the cabinets, tucked along the baseboards
08:43out of reach.
08:44And keep the box of borax itself up high and put away, well out of the children's reach.
08:51Do not scatter it loose where little hands or paws go.
08:54Used with that plain care, kept from the mouths of children and pets, it is a safe and grand
09:00thing.
09:00Treat it as harmless, it is a danger.
09:03Keep it from being eaten and place it out of reach.
09:06That is the honest rule.
09:09Now, clearing the colony is half the work.
09:11The other half is keeping the next one from moving in.
09:15For if you leave the house inviting, new ants will come to replace the ones you cleared.
09:20And this is the part the bait alone does not do.
09:23So here is the real prevention, the same I have given you for the other pests.
09:28Take away what draws them.
09:29Ants come for food, above all for sweet and greasy food.
09:33So keep your counters and floor wiped clean of crumbs and spills and sticky spots.
09:39Store your sweet things, the sugar and honey and syrup, in tight closed containers.
09:44Do not leave food sitting out.
09:46And keep the sink clean, for a clean kitchen with nothing to forage gives the scouts no
09:51reason to call the colony in.
09:53And seal their way in.
09:55Watch where the trail comes through, the gap under a door, the crack by a pipe or a window,
10:00the seam in the baseboard, and seal those cracks and gaps up.
10:04For a sealed crack is one less door for the next colony.
10:08Starve them and seal them out.
10:10And having cleared the colony with the bait, you keep the trouble from returning.
10:15Now here is the honest word about what this does and does not do.
10:19For I will not oversell it.
10:21This bait works wonderfully on the common little house ants that trouble most kitchens.
10:25And clears them, root and queen, in about two weeks.
10:29The big fire ants it works on too, but slower, for their colonies run deeper and larger.
10:35And if you find ants coming from several places in your walls at once, a big spread out infestation,
10:41the bait will still work but will take longer.
10:43And for a bad one, you would do well to have a professional come and find the main nest.
10:48And I will be plain about the cost too.
10:51It is not truly free.
10:52It is a couple of dollars for the box of borax, which lasts a long while.
10:56And it is not quite forever, for a new colony can move in down the road, so if they return,
11:02you simply bait again.
11:04But for a couple of dollars and two weeks patience, you reach the queen and clear the colony that
11:09no spray ever could.
11:10And with the prevention, you keep them gone.
11:13That is the honest measure of it, and it is a very good one.
11:16Now think a moment about why we came to fight ants year after year with the spray can, killing
11:22the runners and never the queen, buying the same can every fortnight and getting the same
11:27trouble back, when two cheap things from the cupboard reach the queen and clear the colony
11:32for good.
11:33It is worse than a plot, for no one had to arrange it.
11:36There is a steady trade in the spray that kills the few you see, and sends you back to the
11:41store in two weeks, and none at all in teaching folk that a sweet bait carried home reaches
11:46the queen and ends it.
11:48So the plain old knowing, that you strike the root and let the pest carry its own undoing
11:53home, just stopped being handed down, because no one profits by your solving it once for
11:59two dollars.
12:00My grandmother baited the ants to their nest and kept a clean kitchen and was not troubled
12:04by them, and somewhere between her day and ours, we were taught to spray the counter
12:09and buy the can again.
12:10The mending of it is two cheap things and a little patience.
12:14You mix your bait, three parts powdered sugar to one part borax, well combined.
12:19You set little dabs of it on caps along the ants' own trails, and you do not spray near
12:24it, and you do not panic when more ants come at first, for that is it working.
12:29You let it carry home to the queen over about two weeks, and the colony collapses from
12:34the inside.
12:35You keep the borax well away from the children and the pets, for it is not to be eaten.
12:39And you starve and seal the ants out so no new colony comes.
12:44And your ant trouble ends, root and queen, for a couple of dollars.
12:48That is how it comes home, one baited trail, one sealed crack at a time, the keeping of your
12:53own house back in your own hands.
12:55So here is what I would ask of you.
12:57This week, if the ants are marching through your kitchen, mix up this bait and set it on
13:04their trails the way I showed you.
13:06And then, hardest of all, leave it be and let it work its two weeks.
13:13And come back and tell me in the comments how it went and whether you held your nerve through
13:19the surge, for I do love to hear of a trouble beaten at its root instead of chased forever.
13:26And tell me too, while you are there, your county and the age of your house, for the old houses
13:32have the more ways in, and I learn from every one of you how it goes where you live.
13:39And if your own mother or grandmother had a way of keeping the ants out that I have not
13:44named here, tell me that most of all.
13:47For that is how this goes.
13:49We share what we were given.
13:51I read every comment, and I learn from you the way the old women learned from one another
13:58across the fence line, one household and one season at a time.
14:04Next time, I will show you the plain old ways of keeping a kitchen so clean and sealed that
14:10the ants and the other crawling things never find a reason nor a way to come in the first place.
14:17The regular habits that mean you scarcely ever need the bait at all.
14:22For the best pest is the one that never comes.
14:26There is a right and an old way to keep a household free of the crawling things that runs
14:32on a clean kitchen and a sealed crack rather than a shelf of sprays.
14:37But this week, you start with the ants.
14:40You mix your sweet bait with its measure of borax, set it on their trails, and let it carry
14:46home to the queen without spraying or panicking, keeping it well from the children and pets.
14:53And you starve and seal the house so no new colony comes.
14:57And you will understand, as my grandmother did, that you strike the root and not the runners,
15:04that killing every ant you see means nothing while the hidden queen lives, and that the
15:10ants' own carrying home, turned against them with a sweet slow bait, reaches the queen that
15:17no spray ever could.
15:19The household kept the plain old way is the one that remembers how the old women baited the
15:24pests to their root and kept a clean, sealed kitchen and ended the ant trouble for pennies
15:31where the spray never could.
15:33And that is a thing we are only just starting to remember.
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