Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a problem with flying ants in my shop I've sprayed the floor with some insecticide but it hasn’t made a dent. I can't seem to find the nest or where there coming from. Anybody have experience with these critters. I'm getting close to bustin' out the flame thrower.

boric acid works on these pests. It can ususlly be found at hardware stores in powder form. Just make a barrier that you don't want them to cross and they won't.

That of course is provided they don't fly over the barrier....

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Flying ants are just the reproductive stages from the colony going out to mate and find a new nest after which time they will loose their wings. They should not last long as they usually only swarm for a short time. However, be sure they are are ants and not termites! Ants will have a waist (pedicel) joining the abdomen and thorax while termites will have the abdomen broadly joined to the thorax. You could spray one of the otc products (be sure to follow label recommendations) but just vacuuming or smashing will do the job. Boric acid is only effective as a barrier to stop foraging ants. Like I said before, swarming doesn't last long. However, you might check around your yard for active ant colonies and deal with them.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Thanks, I was worried about termite's so I did some investigating on the www. They don't look like termites but they don't look like you typical ant either. I have noticed that they come in different sizes and some nights are worse than other, they’ve been around now for 2 or 3 weeks. I have had a problem with fire ants in the yard lately, which is a constant down south. I need to pick up some Amdrose, they were out last time we went to pick some up so we tried something else.

[QUOTE=Pwoolson] boric acid works on these pests. It can ususlly be found at hardware stores in powder form. Just make a barrier that you don't want them to cross and they won't.[/QUOTE]
I second the boric acid. it's a powder and it works on other bugs too. Works better then any of the sprays. It is not toxic like bug sprays but don't inhale the dust cause it will make you sick. It breaks down naturaly too. Good for the enviroment.My grandmom used this in the front garden to keep the bugs away.

Have you tried the ant food/poison? They bring this stuff back to the colony and eventually, even the queen is poisoned. Takes a while, but works well.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Yes, Amdro works very well if you can get them to bring it back to the colony. Problem with that it that you can't kill them on the spot but rather have to sit around and see if they bring it back to the queen mother. When I lived in PHX we has major fire ants and Amdro took care of them.

in most ant species the new born queens will develop wing and leave the colony they hatched from. Those would be the smaller ones. The larger ones are males and there should be more of them than queens. Most species of ants produce mostly drones or none fertile worker and combat ants all year long that never develop wings. but generally once a year a colony will produce a new queen or two and many males. The poor males will do their job then become food for the newly developing colony. that is why more males appear than queens.MichaelP38918.643900463

[QUOTE=Michael Shaw] [QUOTE=Pwoolson] boric acid works on these pests. It can ususlly be found at hardware stores in powder form. Just make a barrier that you don't want them to cross and they won't.[/QUOTE]
I second the boric acid. it's a powder and it works on other bugs too. Works better then any of the sprays. It is not toxic like bug sprays but don't inhale the dust cause it will make you sick. It breaks down naturaly too. Good for the enviroment.My grandmom used this in the front garden to keep the bugs away. [/QUOTE]

And will kill your cat deader than a door nail!

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

[QUOTE=MichaelP] in most ant species the new born queens will develop wing and leave the colony they hatched from. Those would be the smaller ones. The larger ones are males and there should be more of them than queens. Most species of ants produce mostly drones or none fertile worker and combat ants all year long that never develop wings. but generally once a year a colony will produce a new queen or two and many males. The poor males will do their job then become food for the newly developing colony. that is why more males appear than queens.[/QUOTE]

I think I might have learned that somewhere.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Another otion is using DE (diatomatious earth)(sp) which is the fine coral based sand you put in swimming pools. Pretty harmless, should'nt kill your cat, flying insects can fly over it like boric acid however. When a bug crawls through the stuff is cuts them to sheds. The tiny coral is like walking through razor blades to a bug I guess.

Mike
White Oak, Texas

Don't if there's any truth to this article, but I have some carpenter ants at home. I will try it for sure...

Best and poison ever

Enjoy!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Man, i knew there was something wrong with the asparthame, weird because some of the tenants i knew who were drinking diet sodas with that stuff in it died of heart attacks even though there's just one calorie in each can, some of them probably thought they could drink more than one since there was so little calories.

I met a man from Europe lately who was very critical about the stuff. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss but in the case of asparthame and the way the food industry is administrated and what goes on in it, i believe more knowledge should be had by all, i'm really concerned with this.

Speaking of males being done in by the female of the species ... do you know why black widow spider females kill their mates after they've perfomed their primary function?

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D..

I don't know Dennis. Why?

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

I don't know either, but when I asked my wife what she thought, she said, "To stop the snoring before it starts."

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D..

Thinking of it, i'm not showing this to my wife!