It is a powerful chemical and also a very acidic chemical. It’s a sodium borate salt and is often used to make a detergent called Borax which contains some amount of boric acid. Boric acid gets more toxic to pests the more saturated the boric acid molecules get with boron particles. This means the chemical is chaotic and may work better sometimes than others and that shelf life should be taken into consideration. Boric acid comes in a liquid a solid and in granules like Borax. There is a lot you can do with It like cleaning your clothes and washing the kitchen counters. There are other valuable effects that it can have.
Boric acid can be used to control and exterminate a vast number of insects both inside and outside of your home. The process involved making bait. You can also buy boric acid bait for various pests in the grocery store. Most ant baits are made of boric acid. This chemical severely disrupts their digestive system which is open and not at all like the complex mammalian system which has separate pathways for digestion and birth. Most insects have these organs combined. Boric acid is dangerous to both humans and insects as well as pets and other mammals. The acid is corrosive and getting in on your skin, or in your mouth can be severely dangerous. Depending on the purity of the acid the chemical can cause a stomach rupture if too much is consumed. Most ant baits have a very small amount that is very safe for mammals and very dangerous for pests. This is the safest method but if you want to make the bait yourself to save money make sure you are very careful when handling the boric acid itself.
When using boric acid to kill ants it is important to know both the size of the ant, the size of the colony, what kind of ant you are dealing with and how difficult it is to get them to eat bait. Outdoor ants are hard to deal with using boric acid as the rain will dramatically reduce its efficiency so it’s best to buy a waterproof bait station for the bait so the ants can make use of the food even after it has rained. The bait is most effective when used correctly. With domestic products, you will know by the label what type of ant the bait is for or if it is a general bait designed for all types of ants. If you want to mix it yourself you will need to know the specific ant. Are they pavement ants? They could be small amber Pharoah ants or even carpenter ants. How do you tell? Pharoah ants are very capable of splitting their colonies. Do not use any pesticides on them because it will not kill them only cause them to split their colony into multiple satellite colonies that will be harder to deal with. Only boric acid can handle a Pharoah ant infestation. You will want to place the bait directly into their line of sight, right up close to where they have made their nest if you can find it. Otherwise, place the bait in areas where you see high activity.
For carpenter ants, you can use pesticides meant for indoor use and you can also spray outdoor pesticides for ants on the outside of the house to prevent the ants from coming in. This is very effective as most carpenter ants start their main colony outside of the house in wooden detritus.
