How to Kill Ant Larvae

Ants are more of a pest than they are a threat to health, you just don't want them parading through your house. Most commercial ant sprays and traps are address the symptom (the ants' presence in your house) and not the cause (the ant colony from which they develop from larvae). There are several ways to eliminate ant colonies without using toxic pesticides. There are at least a dozen different species of ants in the United States with different nesting, boring, eating, infesting and colonizing habits, the most common, carpenter ants is the species you'll most likely encounter.

Large pot of boiling

Salt

5-foot steel rod

Small sledge hammer

Pot holders

Cornmeal or yeast

Molasses

Jar with lid

Optional

Hammer

Nail

Thief ants

Hand trowel

Find the root of the problem. Little black ants most often colonize in a network of underground tunnels outside your home. As they find their way into your house they leave a pheromone trail for the other ants to follow. Follow the trail to the ant hill.

Hammer the steel stake into the ground through the center of the ant hole and move it around in a circular motion. You want to expose as many of the tunnels as possible.

Fill a large pot (10 to 20 quarts) with water and boil, depending on the size of the ant hill. Once boiling, add salt until it no longer dissolves in the water.

Wrap the pot holders around the handles on the pot and carry it to the ant hill. Thoroughly douse the anthill with the salted boiling water a little at a time until the ground has absorbed all the water. Allow the water to percolate through the underground tunnels and surrounding ground. Repeat this process until the ground will not accept any more water or you have run out of boiling water. The boiling water will kill all living ants and larvae and collapse the tunnels. Any surviving ants will be disoriented by the salt.

Mix a small jar of molasses with a packet of yeast or about three times that amount with cornmeal.

Tighten the lid back on the molasses jar and hammer several nail holes into the lid. This will give ants access to the mixture but not kids or animals. Make sure the nail holes are large enough for the ants to get in and out.

Place the jar nearby the anthill and let them feed. Ants have two stomachs. One they use to feed themselves and the other is a kind of storage tank that they carry juices back to the colony to feed workers, the queen and larvae.

Give the cornmeal or yeast concoction about a week or two to knock out the ant colony. The yeast or cornmeal will expand in their stomachs and the little buggers will explode.

Check with the local agricultural extension service to make sure that you can introduce thief ants into your part of the country. They can be ordered through specialty horticulture stores.

Near the anthill you want to eliminate, dig a 1-by 2-foot hole in the ground and dump a container of thief ants in it to introduce them to their new home. They'll do the rest to build their colony. If they don't like the hole you've made for them, they will likely locate nearby the anthill you want to wipe out naturally.

Feeding on the larvae and food of other ants is how thief ants got their name. So set them loose and let them have their way with the troublesome colony. The only possible problem with this solution is that once they've wiped out the nearby colony, they will begin foraging for food in other places like your home.