Exterior Ant Treatments: Where Do Granular Baits Fit In?

Summer is here, but you aren’t the only ones getting ready for a good time. This time of year, some ants literally come crawling out of the woodwork to search for food and build up their colonies. This, of course, calls for the need to eliminate them when they get a little too close for comfort.

One way to treat exterior ant problems is with baits, which have a range of control results depending on the ant species. For example, using baits to control little black ants, fire ants, pavement ants and odorous house ants is often effective because they share food with one another via a process called trophallaxis, according to the PCT Technician’s Handbook. For other species, however, such as crazy ants, thief ants and large yellow ants, baits are not the right option.

“They’re not good sharers,” said Alex O’Hara, president of O’Hara Pest Control in West Palm Beach, Fla. “They won’t give the bait to their queen. I’ve tried using granular baits with white-footed ants or crazy ants. They don’t like baits that much, granular or liquid.”

However, when dealing with ant species that are susceptible to baits, O’Hara said granular baits are especially effective due to the “the trick factor.” 

Granular baits appear as food particles, which ants pick up and carry back to their colonies. “Basically, you’re tricking the ant into eating it without them knowing what’s going on,” O’Hara said. 

Granular baits have the advantage of time over other control methods like sprays, added O’Hara. “With sprays, you have to go crazy,” he said. “Spraying is more detail-oriented while baits are more of a broadcast method. With baits, you don’t have to spray around all the windows, cracks and crevices.”

O’Hara said he prefers to use InTice 10 from Rockwell Labs when doing perimeter ant treatments. InTice 10 contains 10 percent boric acid, which is a natural pesticide.

“The baits are very tasty to ants, whether they’re gel-based or granular,” O’Hara said. “I tend to spread InTice 10 a lot because I get more bang for my buck.”

Even with applying granular baits, O’Hara said callbacks for ant control are hard to reduce. One exception is fire ants, which, in his experience, are almost always wiped out on the first round of granular bait treatments. O’Hara added that species like big-headed ants tend to mound, so its hard to eliminate all of them on the first try.

Overall, however, a little granular bait goes a long way. 

“I can clear a whole acre by chicken-feeding the property,” said O’Hara of his method for scattering the baits on a wide swath of land. “All it takes is one little grain that an ant takes back to its queen.”

Natural obstacles like rain also are usually not a problem with granular baits, according to O’Hara. “Even if it rains, a lot of the grains have already been picked up by the ants and carried to underground food stores.”