How to Get Rid of Carpenter Ants

You should place bait in areas where carpenter ant activity has been noticed. It is important to avoid purposefully putting the bait in the middle of an ant trail or on to the ants themselves. This will make the ants avoid the bait and make the baiting ineffective. Instead put the bait near ant activity or next to ant trails. To help keep ant bait fresh and off of surfaces we recommend placing the bait in the bait plate stations provided in the kit. Some examples of places where the bait can be placed are:

• In kitchen cabinets and on counter tops.
• Behind, next to, and under the stove.
• Near sinks or drains
• Around pipes, cords, and cables that come out of the wall.
• Behind and under bathroom fixtures.
• Around the medicine cabinet and vanity.
• Around window or door frames

You should check the bait placements once a week and replenish as needed until ant activity has ceased.

We recommend using a non-repellent carpenter ant spray to supplement baiting. We make this recommendation for two reasons:

1. There are times that ants may be more in a nesting cycle or they may already have a steady, safe food source and they will ignore baits.
2. There are some places that you cannot spray such as inside food cabinets or around food prep areas, so bait would be used in those areas.

We put a non-repellent ant spray in our ant kits because the carpenter ants will not be able to detect the spray and it is picked up on their bodies and carried back to the nesting areas. Non-repellent ant sprays do take several days to start killing, but that gives the product time to start spreading through the colony, infecting more ants.

Using the included straw applicator, apply the spray directly into cracks and crevices along baseboards, under appliances, around door frames, window frames and in areas where utilities (cables, pipes, wires) enter into the structure and other areas where ants have been entering your structure.

If you are finding carpenter ants crawling on the exterior of your home you can treat the entire perimeter to eliminate the colony. We strongly recommend you use a non-repellent spray such as Taurus SC. You can also use Termidor SC, but it's not as great of a value. Most ant sprays will only kill the ants that actually crawl over the treated surfaces. Since only about 20% of an ant colony is likely to venture out to forage for food these sprays will not adequately control the colony. The other downside of using other ant sprays is that ants are sensitive to most insecticides and will try to avoid the treated area further lessening the effectiveness of the spray. Taurus SC, and other non-repellent products, are undetectable by ants and other insects so they readily cross over treated surfaces. Once the ants contact the surface the product sticks to their bodies causing them to carry it back to the colony. Once the infected ants are back at the colony they spread the Taurus SC around through social interaction with the other ants eventually leading to colony elimination.

You will need a hand pump sprayer or a backpack sprayer to apply Taurus SC. You will mix 0.8 fl oz of product with each gallon of water. Most folks will need 1-2 gallons of finished solution to complete the perimeter application. You will need to apply the Taurus SC solution one ft up the foundation and one foot out onto the ground to build a barrier. You can also apply the solution around window frames, door frames, places where cables, pipes or wires enter the structure and any other place where you have noticed ants crawling or trailing on the structure. You cannot spray Taurus SC out in the yard as a broadcast spray, and you must limit applications to once every 6 months.

You should note that Taurus SC is formulated to have a slow kill time to allow the ants to spread the product around the colony, and it can take several weeks to see the full results.

If the ants are further away from your home or spraying is not desirable, we would recommend using a carpenter ant bait granule. Carpenter ant bait granules can be broadcast over wide areas but studies show the baits work best if put in small teaspoon sized mounds near the areas where activity has been noticed. Carpenter ants usually forage during the night so it is recommended that you apply the bait just before sunset on a night when rain is not expected. As the carpenters ants forage they will pick up the bait and take it back to feed the colony. Over a few weeks, the colony will be eliminated.