Which of these ten natural, eco-friendly ingredients, works best at repelling or killing pest ants
in your home?
Well, today we’re going to find out in the ultimate anti-ant substance test.
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In all my years of ant keeping, there is one question I receive the most above all other
questions, and it’s this: How do I safely get rid of ants from my home in the most humane
or eco-friendly way?
Wouldn’t knowing this be an awesome help and alternative to calling up a pest company,
which will almost certainly resort to some kind of chemical to exterminate the ants,
which isn’t the most eco-friendly method?
So that’s why this week, I decided to conduct an experiment using live ants from an invasive
yellow crazy ant colony I dug up from my yard, as subjects for an ultimate anti-ant substance
test, using 10 natural items that are easy to find and are ok for the environment, as
well as safe for use around human homes.
I’ll tell you now, I was pretty surprised at some of the results, and I’m sure some
of you might be, too, so keep on watching until the end!
Now let’s go over the anti-ant experiment.
I asked you guys in a community tab post to list some home remedy type things you heard
are good at repelling or killing ants.
And from all your amazing and sometimes surprising suggestions, I chose the ten most common ones.
Here are the ten items we will be testing for their ant-repelling capabilities today,
as suggested by you, the AC Family:
Cinnamon, cucumber, corn starch, peppermint, coffee grinds, vinegar, black pepper, turmeric,
neem oil, and diatomaceous chalk.
Now to test each of these items I will be using this round container.
I’ll need to place baby powder on the inside of it to keep the ants from crawling out during
the experiment.
I’ll also be needing this smaller plastic lid as the base for each substance, which
will make it easier to swap out and not leave any traces of substance behind, for the most
accurate results.
The way it will work is, using each substance one by one, I will create a ring on the lid,
then place in three ant workers into that ring.
Once inside the ring, the ants will instinctually panic being in a foreign area, and will automatically
try to find their way back home to their colony, and in doing so will be compelled to cross
over to the outside of the ring.
However, if the substance is truly an effective ant repellent, the ants will choose to NOT
cross the ring and instead remain inside the circle, or even die after crossing it.
If the substance isn’t an effective ant repellent, the ants will simply cross the
ring unharmed.
Sounds easy and straightforward right?
Well, AC Family, there’s a bit more!
Here is the yellow crazy ant colony collected from my yard.
As an ant lover, I usually don’t enjoy killing ants, but if you’ve been watching this channel
for awhile, we are on a mission to get rid of these invasive ant species to help protect
the native ones living in my yard and the entire ecosystem of my area as a whole, so
I felt these yellow crazy ants would make suitable test subjects because if they end
up dying, then that’s ok, and their deaths won’t be in vain as they will help contribute
to science.
But guys, check this out: Inside this colony, I managed to collect several queen ants, as
well.
So, I decided that I could also test the effectiveness of the ant-repellents on the queens, whom
if you’re really trying to get rid of an ant colony from your home is the one you truly
want dead or gone, because she’s the one giving birth to all the ants in the first
place, essentially the source of every ant home infestation!
So, stay tuned for the bonus anti-queen ant tests, on the items we find to be the most
effective on the worker ants, to be held towards the end of the video.
Without any spoilers, the results on which substances repel and-or kill the queens, may
actually surprise you.
Sound like a plan, guys?
So, what’s your hypothesis?
Which substance or substances do you think will be the most effective at repelling or
killing ants?
Let us know in the comments section and at the end go back to your comment and see if
you were right!
No cheating!
Guys, let the anti-ant experiment begin!
First up is Cinnamon.
I formed a cinnamon ring onto the platform, then placed the whole platform inside.
The stage was set!
I then grabbed a worker ant from the colony, and placed it inside, along with two other
workers.
AC Family, let’s watch!
At first the ants wandered around and indeed seemed to avoid crossing the cinnamon ring.
Wow!
The ants scurried all around trying all points of possible exit from the ring but it did
seem all three worker ants did not want to cross the cinnamon.
Let’s give them a few minutes, guys, and watch what happens.
Turns out almost 10 minutes later, the ants still were not willing to cross the cinnamon.
So AC Family, this tells us that cinnamon is indeed a good ant repellent.
We’ll be testing this on a queen later.
Next up, cucumber.
I placed in the ants, but before I could even get the third ant in, one of the first two
ants already were crossing the cucumber ring.
Eventually, all three ants crossed the cucumber ring unphased and unharmed.
Turns out cucumber is NOT an effective ant repellent.
Next, we test corn starch.
A lot of you mentioned this option and I couldn’t wait to see if it would work.
At first the ants seemed to want to avoid crossing the corn starch ring.
Could this be as effective as cinnamon was?
Nope.
An ant eventually crossed over it a few times and eventually made it unharmed to the other
side.
Corn starch is NOT an effective ant repellent, either.
Next up, fresh peppermint leaves.
I placed in the ants, and the ants right away seemed ok with walking on top of the peppermint
leaves but not crossing it.
Then, eventually, an ant did cross over.
So, turns out peppermint was also NOT an effective ant repellent.
Ok, let's try coffee grinds!
Maybe the caffeine turns the ants off?
Ahhh nope.
They crawled over the coffee ring pretty quick.
Hey, I don't blame them.
Fellow coffee addicts raise your hands!
Man, will vinegar work?
I know this is great at wiping out ant pheromone trails, but were they good ant repellents?
I placed in the ants, and sure enough, the ants crossed the ring, and wandered to the
outside.
Vinegar is NOT an effective ant repellent, either.
How about black pepper?
Perhaps it would be too spicy for the ants to cross.
I placed in the ants, but nope.
Seems the ants were unphased by spice!
Not an effective ant repellent!
Let’s test turmeric.
Surely this strong spice will turn the ants away or kill them?
I placed in the ants.
At first, it did look like the ants were avoiding the turmeric, just as they did the cinnamon,
but in no time, an ant crossed over unharmed.
Turmeric is also NOT an effective ant repellent.
Just two more left: Neem oil.
Now this potent stuff is a great anti fungal and I heard anti-mosquito.
But does it work against ants?
I placed in the ants.
Turns out, they too crossed over unharmed and unbothered.
Wow!
So far none of these items except cinnamon worked at repelling the ants, and none killed
them!
But now we come to this stuff!
Last but not least, we come to diatomaceous chalk!
This is a substance that is well known to kill nearly all insects.
It’s essentially a chalk made of fossilised marine microbes called diatoms that stick
onto an insect's exoskeleton, and well…
I won’t spoil it.
Just watch what happens when I place the ants in.
I placed in three ants, and eventually they all crossed over to the other side, seemingly
unphased and unharmed, but AC Family, what I saw next was truly difficult to watch.
It quickly became apparent that the ants’ walking capabilities were being hindered,
and then, one ant suddenly began to coil and convulse.
It began to die a quick but painful-looking death.
So what you’re seeing here is the after effect of crossing this diatomaceous chalk.
The fossilised diatoms stick to the exoskeleton of the ant create a tonne of microscopic cuts,
which essentially causes the ant to shrivel up and die from dehydration.
It wasn’t long before the other two ants also began to convulse and die from having
crossed the chalk ring.
This diatomaceous chalk or earth, is lethal to insects but safe for humans.
In fact, it’s so safe, it’s placed into cereals, breads, and grain products to help
reduce the infestation of grain-loving insects.
It was sad to see the ants die, but at least we had recorded and proven that indeed this
diatomaceous chalk was not just an effective ant repellent, but an effective ant killer.
And that was it!
After testing all items, turns out only cinnamon and diatomaceous chalk actually worked against
the worker ants.
Did any of you guess these correctly?
Did these results surprise you?
OK AC Family, we’re not done.
As promised, let’s test and see how they work against the queen ants.
First, let’s test to see if a queen ant will dare cross a ring of cinnamon.
In goes the queen.
At first she scurried about avoiding the cinnamon at every contact, but soon crossed over and
it looked like she was unharmed.
Looks like the cinnamon works at repelling worker ants but not so much the queen.
And as for diatomaceous chalk, I placed in the queen ant.
She crossed over the ring, and just like the workers, at first she seemed ok, but it wasn’t
long before she too began to show signs of death by fossilized diatoms.
It was again sad to watch the queen die like this, but again, this needed to be done for
the sake of the ecosystem of my area, and was all in the name of science.
So sorry queen ant.
Thank you for giving up your life in order for us to learn.
And so that was it, AC Family.
In conclusion, we learned today that although cinnamon doesn’t kill ants, it works at
repelling worker ants but not the queen.
To be honest, this actually surprised me because I always thought the cinnamon thing repelling
ants was a myth.
Guess grandmas the world over were actually right!
As for diatomaceous chalk, it works effectively at killing both worker ants and queen ants.
In terms of practicality however, I feel diatomaceous chalk to be the most desirable option for
use at eliminating an ant problem, because what?
Are you going to be creating rings of cinnamon all around your home?
Though it might make your home smell real nice, I don’t think your Mom or Dad would
agree with this.
Chalk however drawn along the edges of a room, wall, or floor might be more inconspicuous
and easier to hide.
I have found the chalk also works well with roaches and other arthropod pest, but you
should note that it becomes ineffective once it gets wet, and it eventually loses its effectiveness
over time so it must constantly be replaced every few days or weeks depending on the humidity
of your home.
It should also be considered that although cinnamon and diatomaceous chalk worked against
these yellow crazy ants, it is still possible that they might not work on other species
of ants, and perhaps some of these other items that we found don’t work, may actually be
effective against other ant species.
But AC Family, overall, it was great that we learned and saw what we did today because
now we know the truth and can tell the world, that we now know an eco-friendly way to get
rid of ants in the home.
I do understand that a lot of people do actually love ants, but at the same time don’t want
them wandering freely inside their home, but it does warms my heart that a lot of you care
enough to choose an eco-friendly way to get rid of ants, over an easier but harmful pest
company way.
Go and spread the word, AC Family!
Go the way of the chalk… or cinnamon, I guess!
Hehe!
Thank you all for watching and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever!