Ant Troubles

[cloud jaguar]

Couple quick ideas off the top of my head...

Rub an inch thick ring of petroleum jelly across the outside of the container.

Set the mantis container in a shallow dish of water.

Place a paper towel between the container and lid (or screen).

 

[nasty bugger]

I don't know how the mantis' would be affected, but I've heard that orange oil will take care of ants.

I think that I also heard that beneficial nematodes will also handle them, but I'd have to say to research that on the internet better before taking it as gospel.

Tangle foot, a sticky product designed kind of like sticky traps but is a paste of sorts that you can paint where you need it, would stop them to a certain point, but everything else that gets caught in it is also going to suffer if they get into it.

I'd research a beneficial insect site, and google for that info.

There may also be herbs that you can spread around that may deter them, but none come to mind right now, but it's 3am here and my mind is about to go into hibernation for the morning.

 

[Rick]

Or find where/why the ants are coming into your home and stop them. Would be more worried about them being in my home than I would them being around my mantis enclosures.

 

[[email protected]]

I would probably not go high tech and use oil’s and poisons.

When one of my mom orchids table got infested we tried lots of stuff and looking back I think putting in a shallow tray of water, crushing every ant you see and removing the food source would be the best way to end the problem.

(We ended it with poison but mantis are involved bug poison probably not a good idea.)

 

[kamakiri]

For me, the use of poison/bait traps would depend on the proximity to my mantises.

If reasonably far in the house, I've used a poison bait product called Terro. It uses Borax/borate and is not very toxic to humans. Otherwise, I just try to make sure the house is well sealed against them.

Terro

http://www.terro.com/antkiller.php