I've got tons of ants. I use Spinosad faithfully. It works for maybe a day. In the front yard, where I have only flowers so i feel comfortable experimenting a little more, I have a strategy now of also sprinkling a generous dose of slow cook grits in the flowerbeds. I have to say, I see fewer ants in the front now than the back. You don't even have to mix the grits with anything-they should just want to eat it on their own and carry it down to their little ant friends undergrounds. I don't claim to be a bug doctor-don't know how this kills or deters them, but it does seem to work.

Boric acid kills ants not borax. Small black ants like living wood and are tough to get rid of them. I hope she has pulled up those wooden timbers because that's probably where they were/are living. Why do you not want these guys in your garden? They're aphid farmers and will carefully put their herds all over your crops. Fire ants are another big no-no to have in your garden, yard or property for that matter. Fire ants are non-native to North America. These tiny terrors kill 1 or 2 people a year generally people with allergies or the bedridden. But they will strip your garden of anything they want, including squash, tomatoes and few other "water" heavy vegetables during a drought. They will attack you if get near their mound, in a swarm attack, with the mound emptying out to go after the invader. For the person who is not allergic it's a stinging fiery bite, that raises a blister on most people. One is annoying, a few are painful but many may make you sick. Keep Benadryl around if you live in fire ant claimed land. Thanks to fire ants each year agricultural losses run somewhere around 6 billion and we all pay for it each time we shop for food, clothes and medicines. I don't like flagrant use of pesticide but there are times we have to do something to protect ourselves, our families, our homes and our gardens from from insects. I use no more then I must, ground based and carefully. As to why I know about fire ants, I became interested in learning about them after nearly dying from them as a small child.

Seedmama, I only use a Spinosad product that is applied to the ground in the form of a granular or pelleted product. I don't spray any sort of liquid Spinosad product on my plants because I have bees everywhere (not beekeeper bees in a hive, just native, local ones). After I put down the Spinosad pellets, I mulch over them so the bees cannot land on them. I don't know if Spinosad applied in a pelleted or granular product to the ground would harm bees, but I will assume it isn't harming mine because I have a billion bees here every year. There's always so many bees around my garden that friends of mine who are afraid of bees will refuse to go into my garden because of all the bees. In our garden, before I discovered Slug-Go and, later on, Slug-Go Plus, the sow bugs and pill bugs would literally eat every bean plant I planted as soon as it emerged. I'd lose hundreds of bean plants a year and then when I replanted, I lost those too. That changed after I found Slug-Go. I also lost tons of tomatoes, strawberries and melons to the pill bugs and sow bugs, and they are not a problem on those plants any more either. I don't think I could raise edible crops here without Slug-Go. Heather, There are different formulations of spinosad. I don't use the liquid spray formulation because it might kill bees (in fact, I think it would kill them) if they visit plants sprayed with it. This is especially true if the bees visit plants shortly after they were sprayed and before the spinosad formulation has dried. If a person uses the Spinosad spray formulation, they can greatly reduce Spinosad-related bee mortality by timing their spraying so that they are spraying when bees are not active. In my garden and yard, the bees come in heavy numbers when something is blooming that they like. When I don't have anything in bloom that they like, then they go elsewhere. I work really hard to have something in bloom for them all the time, but of course, there are some times there's a lot for them and other times when there's not nearly as much in bloom. I don't think there is anything in Spinosad that specifically attracts bees, just that it has the potential to harm them if sprayed on plants they like and visit. When applied only to the ground, I don't see how it could hurt the bees unless they land on the ground and make contact with it. Almost all broad-spectrum pesticides, whether synthetic or organic in nature, have the potential to harm bees and that is one reason to avoid broad-spectrum pesticides. Remember that Slug-Go is iron phosphate only and it is perfectly effective on snails and slugs and even pretty effective on sow bugs and pill bugs. It is the Slug-Go Plus which has both iron phosphate and Spinosad that is effective not only on snails and slugs, but also on pill bugs, sow bugs and cutworms. So, a person seeking to control snails and slugs only could use Slug-Go and other products with the same active ingredient (Escar-Go! is another one) with no fear of harming the bees. I also use an organic fire ant product that contains Spinosad, but I don't think bees visit my ant hills. Dawn

Not Tarro, but Terro. Some ant traps are highly toxic and must not be handled by anyone. Certainly not your children. Read the directions carefully. I am a total fan of the Terro ant baits, but they can be a problem as they are very sugary sweet. Perhaps you can try the pre-baited traps, where the stuff comes already mixed in little plastic trays. Anyway, it is enormously successful, and will do away with the entire colony in a few short hours. However, the active ingredient (boric acid) can be dangerous if animals or children eat it. Ants can set up housekeeping inside the walls of homes, and are capable of causing damage. Best do what you can to get rid of them permanently....which means excluding them, as QQ mentioned.