Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with ants

I, for one, welcome your answers.

Behemoth — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:29:16 -0800

We all know about Them! What are other examples of sci-fi stories (serious or otherwise, well-known or otherwise) featuring insects (ants or otherwise, giant or otherwise) terrorizing, enslaving, or endangering humanity?

Too gross to eat?

shelayna — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:59:55 -0800

Can I still eat this steak even though ants have already partaken? Oh, I'm angry. I grilled some sirloin steaks to perfection, put them on a plate...and then the phone rang. I left the plate on the kitchen counter for a long time (the conversation went on for about an hour and I forgot about the meat). When I came back, I saw a few ants on the plate. Gross! I did see a few (like 3) ants actually crawling ON the steaks. I did the first thing that came to mind- took the steaks to the sink and washed them off. I dried them off with paper towels, wrapped them in foil and put them in the fridge.

Can I eat these steaks? SHOULD I eat them? I think I can get past the gross-out factor. It was only a few ants. I don't know how washing the steaks (quick rinse under the faucet) will affect the taste, but I'm willing to give it a try. Should I heat them up and have at them?

Ninja ants!

Attackpanda — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:48:05 -0800

Ants (or something) in my bed? For the past several nights I've been bitten by fire ants or some type of crazy huge ant. I have no idea where they have gotten in, but they are tearing up my legs, but only in bed. I have no food or water in my room, and my boyfriend doesn't get bit by them when he's over. I get bit a lot less by them a lot less when he's over as well. I've had my apartment sprayed, it does nothing.

My questions - why the hell are ants in my bed? How do I get rid of them, if I can't find the point of entry? I don't even see them during the day, only at night, if I'm lucky.

Minding the gap

Mountain Goatse — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:36:07 -0800

Best way to seal tiny gaps between the hardwood floors and the baseboards? Ants are coming in through the gaps. What compound should I use to seal off the openings?

Amazonian ants in the mail!

thebazilist — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:23:49 -0800

The book I just received from Amazon is covered in ants, which have now infested my mailbox (and my nightmares). What to do, whom to contact? I ordered a book from Amazon and then went away for a long weekend. When I checked my mailbox this morning, it was full of ants. We live in a woodsy area, and there have been ant infestations in the mailbox before, so I wasn't so surprised, especially with the God's-wrath amounts of rain we've been having in New York. But they were definitely concentrated on the Amazon package, so I figured maybe some kind of food had gotten onto it or something.

I went down to the mailbox this evening with a can of Raid and rubber gloves, sprayed all inside and around the mailbox, pulled out the Amazon package and sprayed it all over, too. I brought the package inside, put it in the kitchen sink, and snipped it open with scissors. Ants POURED out like I hope you can never imagine. I sprayed Raid all over the sink, books, and gloves, closed the kitchen door, and ran upstairs to hide.

WTF?? Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? Whom should I contact at Amazon to complain and possibly ask for another copy of the book, and how do I get in touch with them (I remember hearing that Amazon phone numbers are carefully guarded)? Should I ask for another book or am I being a huge baby? How do I make the book safe after having doused it with poison?

Where did these dead ants come from?

LolaGeek — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:50:10 -0800

Where are these dead ants coming from? And how can I keep them from showing up in my house? Last year I noticed that a lot of dead ants were turning up on my living room windowsill and the floor in front of the window. They were just regular sized black ants (less than 1/4" long, not sure exactly how big), they all had wings, and when I saw them they were either dead or dying. I cleaned them up when I saw them, put an ant trap by the window and eventually they went away.

For the last few weeks I've noticed the same type of dead or dying ants on the floor of my front bedroom (directly above the living room). They don't seem to be around the windows at all. I just notice some little black thing in the carpet and bend down to see that it's an ant. I haven't seen any downstairs in the living room so far.

There is no food in the areas I've found the ants. They don't seem to be going to or from anywhere. They just appear, and they're always dead or close to it. Any ideas where they're coming from, how I can keep them out of the house, or if they're a sign of some worse problem?

Looking for an ant game

frankie_stubbs — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:08:18 -0800

Looking for a game where you trap ants with sticks. I played this game years ago where there is a swarm of ants (At least I'm pretty sure it's ants) and you just place sticks down to try and trap them inside. Does anybody know what this game is? It isn't Ant Buster, Ant War, Ant Bully, or Ant City.

Entomology Filter: What are these these seed-like pods? Bug eggs?

plasticbugs — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:46:17 -0800

Entomology Filter: Ant-hill structures in my bedroom. Do I have ants or some other kind of bug? Strange that I haven't seen ONE bug in the three months I've lived here. (pics inside) I recently moved into a new apartment in Venice, California (four blocks from the beach). When I moved in, there were two piles of what looked like sawdust or bird-seed on my bedroom floor. The piles were about the size of ant hills and were against the wall. I thought maybe sawdust had come from my ceiling and landed in these piles (woodpecker, or some kind of bug).

Even if they were ant hills, there were no bugs around or ants. I was not really alarmed by this and just vacuumed them up.

Two months later, I now see two more piles against the wall in basically the same area on my carpeted floor. Now I'm alarmed.

Pile 1
Macro shot of Pile 1
Pile 2

The piles are dry, the pellets/eggs/whatever are not a uniform color. I've taken pictures. Any entomologists out there recognize these things? One is a macro shot, these pellets are absolutely miniscule - smaller than bird-seed.

They take a lickin' and keep on tickin (unfortunately)

Esther Festers — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:08:42 -0800

How long did it take for Terro to exterminate the ant population in your apartment/house? I started using Terro's liquid-filled ant baits on Wednesday, September 17. Now, four days later I am still seeing ants trickle in - not as many as before, but enough to make me grit my teeth, and wonder if they're just waiting for the next set of eggs to hatch before they come in droves again. How fast did Terro work for you? Did it take you a few days, a week, etc?

Killed Me Some Ants!

cjorgensen — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:16:52 -0800

I set fire to a colony of tiny red ants. Now they have gone away. Why/how did this work? So I had a dead spot in my yard, went to check it out, and there a colony of the smallest red ants you could imagine.

I threw some little wood chips and some yard waste in-and-amongst them, and set this on fire.

Now, this was no bonfire we're talking about. You couldn't have even roasted a hotdog over this fire (well, maybe one). Now I have a bare spot in my yard (was pretty much already there), two holes you could put a pencil down, and no ants.

I really wasn't expecting this to do anything. I remember as a kid a neighbor did this to a beehive, of ground living yellow jackets, using a gallon of gasoline. This caused a huge explosion! A deep hole in his yard, and the bees buzzed around the fire and died, but the next day they were rebuilding.

Mine wasn't nearly as intense.

I've had problems with ants before, tried using poison (to limited success), but this is like they packed up and moved on!

Any ideas why? I really doubt it did more than scorch the surface and kill the ones currently outside. So why did they pack up? Is this a solution for other kinds of ants?

Yeah, I know, I am evil. PETA is outside my door right now asking if my cat is ok. I can live with killing them. Just amazed this worked.

A plague o' my house?

mrhaydel — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:17:19 -0800

What might be causing the things seen here in this photo and this photo? The stuff in the first photo kind of looks like an amalgamation of insect...stuff, for lack of a better term.

The second photo looks like droppings to me.

Both photos were taken no more than a foot away from each other, and the wall seen above the baseboard in photo 1 is an external wall in the house. We haven't ever come across either of these things anywhere else in the house.

Has anyone every seen the likes of what's in the photos?

How do I prevent whatever it is from accumulating any more?

How to get rid of ants bees wasps ladybugs etc

Chamunks — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:04:23 -0800

My house has the odd bug problem throughout the year I'm looking for quick and concise solutions that can be made out of house hold products and the best bait to use for these solutions (traps poisons etc). I get the odd problem inside and outside of my house so ill try to mention them separately. These semi random infestations happen on and off for example one year it was ladybugs and another it was ants but they only repeat the odd time. I know this question may seem broad but im looking for some solutions that can be relatively universal yet i can make them for pennies... We keep the house an average sense of clean. Clutter sometimes happens but is usually dealt with in order to isolate problems.

So for the list of things we get in strangely large numbers at random times along with some thing's I have tried to eliminate them.

Carpenter ants along with other random types of ants. (Indoors and outdoors) We used a jar with sugar water and a piece of wool draped from the outside of the jar to the bait to help them drown. [this seemed to work well but it would be awesome to have something outside to stop them before they come in]

Ladybugs - (indoors mainly) I have no idea where these come from but when they come there are at least 20 a week i have to deal with - usually dealt with via vacuum

Housefly's / gnats (Indoors) usually a swift cleanup will help but some times inexplicably we get hundreds of them throughout a relatively short period of time [If this occurs i usually attack them with a vacuum hose for a while till I've significantly diminished their population]

Wasps Bees Yellow Jackets. (Outdoors [my neighbor is an avid gardener which attracts hundreds of flying stinger equipped demons that I'm mildly allergic to]) I've tried making a sort of bee trap out of a pop bottle but I need to find the best bait to put in it advice please.

That covers it keep in mind this is over a period of several years not all happen at once but next time one of these things happen i wish to deal with it swiftly with the proper tactics / weapons available to my arsenal :P

ants! ants! ants! kill! kill! kill!

grumblebee — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:40:02 -0800

Help me rid my apartment of ants! They're little black sugar ants, and up until a couple of weeks ago, they were everywhere. I made sure food was packed away, bought a bunch of those little ant "hotels", sprinkled cinnamon and boric acid everywhere... nothing helped. (The ants avoid the cinnamon and boric acid. But they just move to another location in my apartment.)

I finally gave up and called in an exterminator. He sprinkled something that looked like pepper in various places, said "leave that stuff there for a week," and left. I had to go out of town for ten days. I just got back, and there are still ants running around on the kitchen counter.

However: that pepper-like stuff did help. I'd say it killed (or scared off) 80% of the ant population. I feel like if the exterminator had just sprinkled some more if it, in a few more places, I'd be antless.

Does anyone know what the "pepper" is? I don't want to call the exterminator back and pay him to sprinkle stuff on the floor that I could sprinkle myself.

How can I keep ants from living in my grill?

underthehat — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:47:19 -0800

Ants make colonies in my new gas grill. How can I keep them from moving in when the burners are off? A couple of weeks ago, I replaced my gas grill. I use it once a week or so, and last week when I pulled off the cover, there was a colony of ants living between the space between the cover and the top of the grill. The ants scrambled to rescue eggs and larvae as I brushed them away. Once they were gone, I grilled with no ill effects.

Last night, 3-4 days since the last grilling, I went to use the grill again. This time the ants had taken up residence in the space between the knob panel and the grill box. Eggs, ants, larvae, same as before. Since they were in s tighter space, I hosed them off.

This is borderline gross, and a pain in the neck. It did not happen with the older grill, and I can't find anything online to help, so I turn to MeFi.

The new grill is a Weber Spirit, in black. The old one, also a Weber, was red (like this). I'm using the same cover. Is it possible the darker color attracts ants?

With the new grill, I've been using a wire brush to clean the grilling surface; in the old one, I would run the grill on thigh after I was done in order to carbonize any residue. Since I don't do that anymore, am I leaving behind more food that attracts the ants? I don't see them inside the actual grill box, though.

The new grill has a cabinet underneath; the old one didn't.

The ants are on the large side, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, and black.

How can I get rid of carpenter ants?

mithiirym — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:37:24 -0800

My apartment is being overrun by carpenter ants that won't go away. How can I get rid of them? First, understand that I'm from Los Angeles and I never saw a single carpenter ant for thirty years until I moved to New York state. When I first saw one of these monstrous mutants ants (oh, and freakish centipedes as well), I freaked out. I thought they were coming from the window sills at first, so I sealed them with tape and I thought it was working. Well, they're back and in larger numbers. They often play dead, they carry off their dead brethren, they keep growing larger, and they crawl all over me! I've tried little bait stations but they had no effect. My girlfriend decided to use ground pepper to control them, but I highly doubt that will do anything. So, what's the secret to eradicating these large, hideous beasts?

Ants in the bathroom!

nebulawindphone — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 09:54:30 -0800

Ants in the bathroom! We're re-caulking a bathtub that badly needs it — the old caulk is black and peeling. When I pulled away the last strip of old caulk, out poured a few dozen tiny red ants. We hadn't been seeing any in the house until now; apparently they were happily living in the wall until I disturbed them.

What's the best solution here?

In particular, do I have to take care of this before I reapply the caulk? We're all looking forward to bathing on Monday, so I'd rather not wait too long unless I have to.

Want to go smoke some ants?

god particle — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:46:05 -0800

Can someone please explain to me the practice of smoking ants? A roommate of my friend's was smoking, but it wasn't weed or tobacco. It was ants. I had never seen or heard of this before, and I'm having trouble finding any more information on the internet other than this is a practice from the east. Has anyone else ever seen or experienced this? Are they special ants? Has this been going on for long? How common is this practice? I'm also interested in reading about the effects and, if possible, the chemistry behind it (such as is there some neurotransmitter that is affected or whatever).

Ant Colonies in my Pot Plants

gerls — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:09:22 -0800

Why are there ants setting up nests in my pot plants?! Every time I water my lavendar, Geraldton Wax (Aust native) and my mint bush, ants start pouring out of the ground in their hundreds. I suspect they are also making the dirt in my pots 'hard' - the water seems to just run off it instead of soaking in. I have tried stabbing the dirt with a chopstick around the plants to airate the soil and get some water down to the roots, but the ants persist. Any help/ suggestions?

WTF! Ants are in my cable modem!

emptyinside — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:41:58 -0800

OMFGFilter: I was cleaning my living room / bedroom / office and underneath my side-laying cable modem I found HORDES of ants swarming around pale little crumbs. Did I just find a nest? Holy hell. My modem was only there for a couple days...
Was that eggs? Was a vacuum enough to kill the buggers and thier offspring? I knocked em out of the modem, but there's still ants crawling everywhere!

What the hell, I thought we had technology to triumph over nature, not serve as warm spots to breed!

Pet-safe Pesticides?

SpecialK — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 18:13:27 -0800

As usual, we skipped spring here in Texas and went straight to what my Yankee self considers summer. And with summer in Texas comes bugs -- fire ants, chinch bugs, and all kids of other assortments of creepie crawlies. Normally I'd simply diazinon the entire yard and just fuhgetabout it, but this year -- I have a puppy. A puppy that likes eating digging in dirt and rubbing her nose in it. My dog's a 1 year old Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, and I love her to death. I don't want to do anything that could possibly risk her, but at the same time -- my yard will become one giant fire ant colony and the homeowner's association will be all over my ass because chinch bugs will have eaten my entire lawn if I leave the yard untreated.

Oh, and ... she also *loves* eating bugs. I haven't had to kill a spider since she moved in. If the pesticide takes a while to build up before it kills the bug, would she be at risk after she eats her billionth roly-poly?

My understanding is that diazinon and other 'apply once' pesticides stay in the soil for the entire season. I also know that they're incredibly harmful to household pets.

What can I treat the yard with that will be safe for my dog? I can keep her inside during the day for a few days to allow it to soak into the soil and do it's thing. But is that enough? What's safe? What do I need to take into consideration?

Ants on a Computer

Flamingo — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 09:08:43 -0800

I believe there are ants living in my laptop. This morning, I saw three ants crawling on, around, and INTO my computer (through the USB port or audiojack, I'm not sure which). How can I get rid of them? Our house currently has a bit of an ant problem and we've been using Terro (Toro?) to get rid of them, but naturally I am hesitant to use a sticky poison near my computer.

For the record, it's an iBook G4.

Dead ants everywhere

schoolgirl report — Thu, 25 May 2006 12:14:10 -0800

Why are there dead bodies all over my livingroom floor? Dead ant bodies, that is. Last week, after the torrential rains here in New England, I awoke to find big black ants dragging their fellow ants' carcasses -- some whole, some not -- into my livingroom. At first I thought there might be a battle going on, but I see no evidence of that. All I see are bits and pieces of ant. I've put down a trap, to no avail. I don't see any other ant activity inside or outside the house that strikes me as odd.

This has died down in past few days, but it's still happening. And it's icky. I'd rather not exterminate if I don't have to, as I've got a little girl running around in bare feet. And I don't think these are carpenter ants, as I haven't seen any piles of wood dust anywhere.

What's the story here? Are they simply doing some spring cleaning?

Recommend me books about ants, termites, Quakerism and black cowboys

xpermanentx — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 03:33:43 -0800

Recommend me some books/articles about specific, somewhat esoteric, subjects. Can anyone recommend good books/articles about the following subjects: black cowboys, ants and termites, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a history of Methodism and Quakerism.

I'm thinking books in the vein of Cod: A Biography, Salt: A World History, Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. Something readable and engaging. I'm also going to buy a few "groups" of books (Zero, Infinity, Chaos, in one go, Salt, Cod, Potato, in another, etc.) and read them in one go. Any recommendations for other groups?

WHat else can I do about my ant problem?

bluehermit — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 21:26:50 -0800

Ant Problem, is there anything else I can do? a few days ago I found a few ants in my kitchen so I set up a few an traps hoping I could catch the few that where there, the next morning I woke up and found many many ants swarming an area of my kitchen and storage room. I put down powdered borax and icing sugar around the problem areas and it has helped, the ants are not swarming as much anymore, but I am still finding a bunch around, and even worse some are migrating to other areas of my kitchen. Have I done everything I can do? My landlord isn't being very helpful, he just set up a few traps outside. Do I have to wait it out a few more days before I become worried? Sorry if this question has been asked before, I'm just wondering if there is anything else I can do.

How to keep an ant problem from happening?

ubernostrum — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 11:23:30 -0800

AntFilter: I've noticed a few ants in the apartment. What do I do to make sure I don't get a few more? It happened because I have an addiction to sweet iced tea, which I often have in a large glass sitting next to my laptop. I left such a glass sitting for a few hours today and when I came back I noticed a couple of ants wandering around near it. Knowing that a couple of ants now can mean a lot more later, I immediately did a couple of things:

First, I figured out where they'd come in to the apartment; I have a nice pair of French doors right by the desk, and while they seal pretty well, these ants were tiny enough to slip through (almost too small to notice, really, unless they're moving). Thinking back to something I'd read about how ants leave chemical trails behind them to navigate, I went and grabbed the chlorine-based spray cleaner I use in my kitchen and bathroom; a few drops of it sprayed on a paper towel killed the ants immediately, and the same wiped across the base of the doors will hopefully eradicate those little trails of theirs.

Then, not wanting to leave anything to chance, I cleaned everything in the apartment as thoroughly as possible. I'm not a messy person by any stretch of the imagination, but I could see a couple things which might be attractive to foraging ants; there was an open box of doughnuts on a counter, which I sealed, and there were some dishes in the sink from last night which needed washing up, so I took care of that.

Is there anything else I should be doing to ensure that no more ants come wandering in? If I see any ants around tomorrow I'll definitely be giving the landlords a call, but I'd rather deal with this immediately and not have to worry about it.