All ants (small and large )live in colonies. Their colonies consist of an egg-laying female/s (queen or queens), short-lived males, and workers (sterile females). The ants you see foraging in your garden or kitchen are workers. It is the job for these worker ants to forage and lay down a trail pheromone that tells other worker ants where to find the food.

In the spring, ants develop wings and fly to new locations and invade homes to forage for food or to establish a new colony nest.

As a group, ants have a wide food range, feeding on sweet foods, protein foods, greasy materials, starchy substances. They may feed on and all kinds of plant and animal materials.

There are two categories of ant control that will be encountered with an ant problem. There are ants that live outside and forage inside and ants that already have a nest built inside.

The ant control strategy that you should take depends on your type of infestation.

Ants that live outside will travel inside the home to search for food. Some species may ultimately reside in houses. To prevent both of these scenarios, follow these procedures:

Bait treatments and insecticides can be used to control ants in the outside nest. The best insecticides for ant control are non repellent insecticides such as Dominion 2L Insecticide, Termidor , Phantom Liquid or Phantom Areosol. If you choose to bait, bait in areas of ant ant activity so the ants can find the bait and take it back to their colony. Generally speaking use both sweet based bait and a greasy/protein based bait combination in order to make sure that the bait choice will cover their wide range food choices. If you use a repellent insecticide near these baits, it may contaminate the baits and or kill the ants before they can bring the bait back to the nest.

It may take a couple of weeks for baiting to work When the ants eat up their baits, replace it with more baits. It is working, just be patient !

Insecticide dilutions such as Bifen IT or Conquer can be used outside to successfully drench ant nests such as fire ant nests.Generally speaking you use a low dilution rate, but plenty of volume of finished solution to drench a fire ant mound. It may take a couple of gallons per mound.

Ants that live (nest) inside your home.

There are some ants that don't just come and go in your home foraging for food, but actually establish a colony inside. This occur year round, especially in warmer climates.You may have ant species that live in homes include argentine ants,crazy ants, odorous house ants, pavement ants, pharaoh ants, thief ants, and carpenter ants. All of these ants may infest food products.

Spraying a residual repellent insecticide to control foraging workers may provide only short-term control. Non repellent insecticides such as Phantom Liquid or Phantom Aerosol sprayed inside would be a better choice than repellent insecticides, because they don't know it is there These non repellents unknowingly are tracked back to the nest by the workers

Another way is to use such ant baits as listed below: The ants will feed on the ant baits and take it back to the queen, killing the whole colony.

Ant baits recommended for the Smaller Ants (Sugar and Protein Feeding Cycles)

When in doubt of which one to choose, choose one from each category

For the protein and greese feeding cycles:

Advance375 A Ant Bait(for protein/grease feeding cycles)

Click here :Advance 375 a to order

Maxforce Ant Bait Stations(for protein/grease feeding cycles)

Click here :Maxforce Ant Bait Stations to order

Maxforce Bait Granulars(for protein/grease feeding cycles)

Click here :Maxforce Ant Bait Granules to order

Sweet Feeding Cycles:

Intice Gelanimo Ant Bait for sweet cycles-not messy, particulary good for Odorous Ants)

Click here :Intice Gelanimo Ant Bait to order

Optigard Ant Bait Gel(for sugar feeding cycles excludes fire, harvester and pharaoh ants)

Click here :Optigard Ant Bait Gel to order

The powerful, slow acting non repellent active ingredient, thiamethoxam in Optigard ant gel knocks out workers, brood and queens. Also, Optigard Ant Gel Bait provides a longer window of palatability so, as it ages, ants will continue to feed on the bait without any loss of attraction
Maxforce Ant Killer Ant Bait Gell(for sweet feeding cycles)

Click here :Maxforce Ant Killer Ant Bait Gel to order

Unless you can treat the nest directly, spraying is not an effective solution for small ants, unless you use a non repellent insecticides or "undetectable" liquid treatments such as Dominion 2L, Termidor or Phantom . Phantom liquid of aerosol are labeled for the inside. Optigard Flex is another very good non repellent labeled for inside for Argentine Ants(ants popular in California)

Dominion 2L and Termidor may not be used inside. Unlike older insecticides, non repellent insecticides can't be smelled, tasted, or even felt by pests. So they crawl through the treated area, not knowing that by ingesting treated materials or merely contacting the insecticide, they'll die.

Again, workers must eat the bait, take it back to the nest, and feed to the queen and larval ants. This type of control is incompatible with treatments(such as repellent sprays)that prevent workers from returning to the nest with the bait.

Unlike other home-inhabiting ants, the larger carpenter ants cause structural damage to wood by excavating and nesting inside wood structures. Carpenter ants usually do not make nest in healthy wood, but tunnel wood that has become wet and started to decay. The larger Carpenter ants are about 3/8 to 1/2" long . They may be black or red.

The best way to treat carpenter ants are either by baiting, placing the recommended carpenter ant baits listed below one their trails or the use of a non repellent insecticide inside called Phantom Liquid or Phantom Aerosol

Carpenter ants are most active in the evening hours foraging for food, both inside the house and outside. By following ants at that time , you may be able to tell where to spray or bait. Treating the carpenter ant nest directly would be the last resort for carpenter ants, as there is a tendency to scatter the colony if you do not treat the nest entirely.

Ant Baits recommended for the Larger Carpenter Ants:(Sugar and Protein Feeding Cycles)-When in doubt of which one to choose, choose one from each category

Advance 375 A and Maxforce Carpenter Ant Bait Gel are excellent baits for the larger carpenter ants, when used together they feed both the sugar and protein feeding cycles of these ants. The Advance 375 A feeds the protein needs while the Maxforce Carpenter Ant Bait Gel feeds the sugar requirements of the colony.

Advance375 A Ant Bait(for protein/grease feeding cycles)

Maxforce Carpenter Ant Gel(for sweet feeding cycles) for carpenter ants are excellent baits.

To prevent further carpenter ant infestations, trim all trees and bushes so branches do not touch the house and correct moisture problems such as leaky roofs and plumbing. Paint and/or seal exposed wood construction before it becomes wet. Replace previously ant-infested wood, rotted, or water-damaged wooden parts of the structure and eliminate wood/soil contacts. Remove dead stumps on the property and store firewood off the ground and away from the structure.

Non Repellents For Outside Ant Control: Dominion 2L, Termidor and Phantom

Since Dominion 2L (Same as Premise 2) is a non-repellents, carpenter ants , Pavement Ants and Argentine Ants can't detect it; instead, they come directly in contact with the active ingredient, - imidacloprid, without trailing in another area.

Dominion 2L is much more economical than Termidor , but is only labeled for Carpenter Ants, Argentine and Pavement Ants. Dominion 2L is not labeled for Fire ants, Pharaoh or harvester ants.

Dominion 2L is labeled for outside use only and will yield- 50 gallons (strongest dilution rate) compared to Termidor SC- 12 gallons(strongest dilution rate).

Phantom Insecticide and Phantom Aerosol For Inside and Outside Ant Control:

For Roach and Ant control inside use the non repellent insecticide product Phantom. Phantom will yield 8 gallons for ant control. It is highly suggested that you use a non repellent such as Termidor SCfor the outside in conjunction with the Phantom

Phantom is extremely effective when used alone, or in conjunction with other products such as ant baits. It will not repel pests, or cause them to avoid bait areas. Phantom treatments only require a small amount applied to problem areas to achieve ant control.

Phantom is long-lasting, and effective at controlling entire ant and roach populations at low doses. Phantom provides superior roach and ant control by striking ants inside your home where they cause the most trouble. But if you have an ant problem, the ants in your house probably have their nests outside-they travel back and forth

More Information: Phantom Termite/Insecticide