If you have an anthill problem and you’d like to get rid of them, then keep reading. In this article, I’ll be giving you tips on how to get rid of anthills.

If you notice heaps of sand structures around the garden, then it’s most likely ants. These creatures not only destroy the looks of your garden with their mounds of sand, but they can also make your time at the backyard garden more unpleasant.

Destroying Anthills

Anthills are heaps of soil commonly found around gardens. They are built by ants using materials like dirt, rocks, sand, and other decomposed materials.

​Ants build anthills to serve as a haven for the colony, which is led by the queen.

Anthills look like domes, this is because the dirt is dug from under the ground and carried out of the structure.

The work within an anthill never stops, as the workers keep digging a network of tunnels to support their growing numbers.

These ants can multiply from hundreds to thousands, to millions over time, which is why anthills must be destroyed before it gets too late.

How To Get Rid Of Anthills Completely

Below are some tips with which you can use to get rid of anthills, and the ants themselves.

  • Use A Chemical-based Pesticide

The truth is, you have no idea how many ants are beneath the anthill, as there have been many tunnels dug below your garden. For this reason, using a chemical-based insecticide may be your very best option.

There are many brands in the market for you to choose from, the more potent the better.

Get the ones that are in powder form so you can sprinkle them at the entrance of the anthills. Once the ants come in contact with the pesticide it will die in a matter of minutes.

Do not allow the pesticide to come in contact with the plants in your garden since they may harm them. Concentrate your efforts strictly towards the anthill entrance.

Also make sure you read the instructions on the back of the pesticide before using it, just to be sure you’re following all safety precautions.

  • Use Boric Acid And Sugar Mixture

Boric acid is one of the most trusted means of getting rid of pests. It kills very fast and it isn’t expensive.

Here’s what you can do with it –

You can take a handful of the powder and sprinkle it around the entrance of the tunnel, and the ants will make contact with it as they pass through.

This method is very effective since boric acid kills ants fast. However, there is a faster way to use Boric acid.

To spice things up, you can whip up a batch combining boric acid, water, and sugar.

Simply get a bowl and pour the boric acid into it. The next step is to throw in some sugar, then add a sufficient amount of water to dilute the boric acid and the sugar.

When your solution has been prepared, take the bowl to the anthill, and gently pour it into the entrance. You can use a funnel for this to ensure that none of your solution spills and wastes.

The boric acid/sugar solution will flow down the tunnels and reach even the most inaccessible areas in the tunnel.

The ants will die after they have made contact with the solution.

You may be wondering what the function of the sugar is. Well, ants love sugar, so adding sugar to the solution will encourage them to go close to the pool of the solution, that is if it doesn’t touch them on its way down.

  • Poison Them And Let Them Poison Themselves

For people who are interested in how to get rid of ant hills in the driveway, here is an option.

This is almost the same thing as using a pesticide. However, there is a slight difference.

Some pesticides only kill the ants that come in contact with them, and this usually happens in minutes. However, there are poisonous pesticides that will not kill the ants in minutes, but rather in days.

Any ant that comes in contact with the poison will spread it among the other ants inside the colony, and it will keep spreading as more and more ants make contact with each other. Which you would expect is a lot of times.

As I said, poisons like these take days to kill the ant, which is more than enough time for the poison to spread around the entire colony, killing all the workers and the queen.

Simply place the poison at the entrance of the anthill and allow the ants to move in and out of the tunnels as they please. Little do they know that they are carrying a poison back into their home.

This is the best method for me, as it is almost a 100% guarantee that every ant that lives in that colony will get a piece of the poison. It is also an effective means to deal with ant populations that have gone well past their thousands.

  • Drown The Ants With Boiling Water

Looking for how to get rid of anthills naturally? Here is a method that works.

This is one of the most popular means by which you can kill the ants in an anthill. The process is quite simple too.

All you have to do is boil some water, make sure it is enough to go round the tunnels in the anthills. Take the boiling water down to your garden where the anthill is and gently pour the hot, steamy water through the entrance.

The water will flow quickly down the entrance and through as many tunnels as there are within the hill.

There is no escaping for the ants, since the hot water can reach any corner in the anthill, regardless of where they decide to hide.

Make sure you take the water to the anthill when it’s still hot. Leaving it to cool off before application will not give you the best results, as the heat is needed to kill the ants immediately.

To make the effects more devastating, you can add some crushed garlic into the boiling water. Insects hate garlic, and ants are not left out. The good thing is, the hot water will extract some of the garlic juice and spread it to as many corners of the tunnel as possible.

How To Find The Anthill

An anthill can easily be recognized upon sight, but the problem is finding it first. Ants can build their anthills anywhere they like, although it must be on the soil where they can dig through.

It could be located by the sidewalk, the backyard, the front yard, or right in the middle of the garden.

So what do you do when you first notice a handful of ants creeping around your front door? You can use them to locate their anthill. All you have to do is set up bait for them.

Keep in mind that the bait must not be poisonous, as your mission here is not to kill them, but to find out where they live.

You can use something sweet as bait. For ant species that love sugary foods, you can break up some candy into bits that are small enough for them to carry. For ant species that are protein lovers, you can use peanut butter as bait.

Drop some off around the areas where you have seen them walk by. When the ants pick up the scent of the food, they will head right on to get it.

You can follow them as they head back home, and that is how you can locate their anthill.

Remember, ants usually walk in a line formation, so tracing their movement will be quite easy.

Using this method to locate where the anthill is will require some patience on your part since you can’t call out” the ants and tell them you’ve dropped off a package for them. You just have to wait for them to notice it themselves.

  • Kick Down The Hill

After you have found the hill and terminated the ants, the next step would be to level the hill. This for me is the fun part. Consider it revenge against the ants for the damage they have done to your yard.

This is a very easy way to get rid of anthills in lawns.

How To Stop Ants From Coming Back

Cayenne pepper and black pepper make good spices for human food, but they are despised by ants.

These peppers are very useful in the fight against ants, not just because it kills them, it also deters other ants from visiting you.

You can make a simple solution and sprinkle around the soil in your garden. Pour the adequate amount of Cayenne pepper into a bowl, add some water, and stir thoroughly.

Whip up a batch that can be sufficient to cover the entire garden area. You can always make more if the first batch was not sufficient.

Not to worry, the Cayenne pepper solution is not harmful to plants so the trees in your garden will be safe.

Conclusion

Ants hills can house as many as a million ants so they need to be exterminated.

I trust this article on how to get rid of anthills has been helpful.

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