SyngentaAdvion Fire Ant Bait, 2-lb. Shaker Bottle, Highly Effective Fire Ant Bait, Formulated with 0.045% Indoxacarb, Outdoor Use, for Fast-Acting Control of Fire Ants

After spending the summer trying to kill ants in my garden using a variety of products, i am sharing the a list of the things I wish I had known from the beginning.1. There are different kinds of ants - red ants, black ants, fire ants, carpenter ants… you have to have a rough idea of what type of ant you are dealing with before you start. This will make more sense later.2. Ant baits contain two key products - the poison itself (e. Borax) and the rest of the foodstuff it contains to attract the ants (sweet or grease/protein based). Black ants like sweet based products, fire ants like protein based. That is why you see so many different types of bait of the market - you have to pick the right type for your ant problem. Terro contains borax and is sweet, so great for black ants, not so good for red ants or fire ants. THIS IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT.3. A colony will only die one the queen dies. That’s why bait are a better long term fix than sprays. A spray kills the ants you see, not the queen. For every one you kill there’s probably a hundred hiding siomewhere.4. Queen ants live for up to 15 years, so don’t think that the problem will go away come winter. They will be back the following year in even bigger numbers. Tackle them as soon as you see them.5. Ant baits take time to work as they are deliberately designed not to kill ants instantly. The worker ants eat the bait and take it back to the queen. It can take up to three weeks to kill a colony using bait. It depends on both the size of the colony and the maturity of the colony. A big colony takes longer than a small one - there are so many ants and you need to replace the bait regularly.6. Queens ants don’t eat for the first month after establishing a colony - so all that time you’ve been trying to kill the queens … turns out that you’ve only been killing the worker ants. You need to keep putting down bait until all the ants are gone.7. If using a bait outdoors, moisture like dew can stop the product from working. I had thought that this wouldn’t be an issue with Terro as it was container, but it seems like it was less effective when it was humid or damp outside.8. Several types of ant have more than one queen. This was an eye opener for me. This is important because one queen dies, you can be pretty sure that there are several others ready to move the colony to a new location a few feet away from the nest you’ve tackled. At least six times this summer I would go back and find another new nest a couple of feet away from the original problem.9. If you are losing patience and decide to try and kill the colony with insecticide spray or a dehydration powder, focus on the flying ants. Those are the typically the ones that are going to set up a new colony. Spray into all the cracks and crevices, then sit and wait for 20-30 minutes. You will see the surviving ants crawl out from their hiding space once they think the danger has passed. This is when the flying ants emerge in droves.10. The reviews for ant products are highly dependent on the any type (fire, black, carpenter), the bait poison, the food product in the bait (sweet, protein), the location of the reviewer (USA has different ants from Europe), the location of the reviewer (dry, damp), the location of the ants (indoor, outdoor) and the reviewer’s level of patience (baits take time). Do your research before you start and it will save you monkey, time and your sanity!Finally this product worked amazingly for red and brown ants, I could literally see them carrying it away. It’s not so good for fast, black ants who I think prefer sweet products. I will 100% buy this again to keep the ants under control.