No, Ants Are Not Your Friend
Ants are not a deterrent on termite colonies
There’s quite a bit of folk wisdom around the business of termite eradication.
One myth is that the presence of ants is a deterrent to termite colonies. It’s just not true.
It is certainly true that ants will eat termites if they can – termites are extremely nutritious. However, termites have had plenty of time to evolve defences against predatory ants. So it’s only when catastrophic damage, such as the fall of a tree limb, befalls the termite colony that ants get the opportunity to gobble them up.
Most of the time, the two species just coexist in a sort of armed truce.
But it’s not just that ants don’t live up to their reputation as termite deterrents – it gets worse.
Ants are just as happy as termites to take to your termite baits, pre-empting the arrival of termites, who will then avoid the termite bait, rendering it redundant.
So a good termite eradication strategy should include measures for thwarting the colonising efforts of ants.
I have done some experimenting with Ant-Rid, the active ingredient of which is Fipronil. Ant-Rid baits contain no cellulose, are not attractive to termites and can be installed inside a termite monitor suffering ant infestation.
As with termite baiting, the poisoning process of ants entails the ants carrying the poison back to the nest.
While unfortunately (fortunately?) I had no brown ants to observe on my property
I found that Ant-Rid (- only $4.95) at supermarkets – certainly took care of the black ants infesting it, leaving my termite monitors free of interference, and able to continue operating as they are meant to.
Just letting you know I had a success with your bags of bait. I do have traps set around the place but it was on an infested fence post that I attached a tuckerbag, after replacing three emptied bags the obvious termite activity has stopped (big smiley face!) . Termites had started eating the wood in the nearest trap to that fence post but handn’t actually filled in the top hole before their nests demise… I’m absolutely wrapped with the witnessed effectiveness of this system and I’ll keep an eye on all my traps and do the poke around and inspections you suggest. Thank you very much for an alternative to dodgy so called professionals that really works.
Thank you Rhonda. We receive plenty of good news comments from customers who phone up to order more bait after a win against termites but fewer customers take the time to sit down and send smiley faces with enthusiasm. Thank you again.
As for the termites that didn’t follow the script and fill in the hole… that is very rare. However in this case it didn’t matter because the other workers from the post did the job. Well done! Ion