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We have a huge ant colony living between our sidewalk and the street.

Pedestrians stop and look.

I don't really see how they are pestering anyone, but they are considered pests.

This is a huge society with its own queen. Her picture is on their little ant coins, i'm sure.

So yesterday i sprinkled grits on the ant colony. I feel just terrible about it. Supposedly this will kill them all. I'm not sure how, but we were told that sprinkling grits on it will kill them all. Perhaps the bacon they cook as a side dish will clog their arteries. I don't know.

I secretly hope the grits make them stronger. I picture them coming back ten times bigger and knocking on the door asking for more grits and perhaps some gravy?

I tell myself I thought it was just a gritty game--I suppose now I will become a Speaker for the Dead and travel across the suburbs trying to find a new home for their queen.

Oooooooh, I bet they eat the grits and it expands in their stomachs causing them to explode! You'll have teeny ant body parts all over your sidewalk! Fun times!?! I don't mind ants unless it's fire ants. I destroy any fire ant hill I find in our yard.....major yikes!

The Ants would come into your house and kill you if they could and it benefitted them. Therefore you shouldn't feel guilty about doing the same.

Statman, be careful. Your home will soon be covered by large, unidentifiable yellow grains. Resist the urge. Ignore them. They're a danger to you, your foragers and your workers.

Transmogrified Tiger wrote:The Ants would come into your house and kill you if they could and it benefitted them. Therefore you shouldn't feel guilty about doing the same.

its true, ants will go to war over territory. usually with other ants, but still.

in a previous house we had an ant problem in the kitchen. i'd kill them all but there were always more. once the peanut butter jar lid wasn't closed tight and they found their way in. That's one way to trap them and its a surprisingly tasty snack.

but always there were more.

i gave it some thought over the winter, and the next year i was ready.

the first time they appeared, i killed them all ... except one. I shouted at him "go back! tell them what happened here!"

no more ants. true story. i'm not sure the shouting helped, but i think before they would send a troop out, and when it didn't come back, they'd send another to see what happened. They just needed closure. Like the peanut butter jar. Firm closure.

I don't think I could ever have any guilt over eliminating an ant colony. I sure as heck don't want those things in my house.

A couple of years ago, there were hundreds, if not nearly a thousand, of them congregating around something that had gotten spilled in my driveway. So, a couple of friends of mine and I decided it would be a good idea to pour a few drops of gasoline on them and ignite it. The fire wasn't that impressive, but the sounds of little ants exploding like popcorn was rather interesting on a purely juvenile level. ahhh, good times.

I'm surprised you didn't set up a magnifying glass to only burn them during a certain time of day

Evidently, it's a myth that grits kill ants, although you are feeding ant larvae, who, in turn, will regurgitate some of the food to feed the adult ants:

http://www.pestproducts.com/grits.htm

But on this site, a writer mentioned mixing grits and gun cotton, which the ants use to create a trail back to the ant hill. Then you light the gun cotton and KA-BOOM!

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load ... 29124.html

StatmanCrothers wrote:
in a previous house we had an ant problem in the kitchen. i'd kill them all but there were always more. once the peanut butter jar lid wasn't closed tight and they found their way in. That's one way to trap them and its a surprisingly tasty snack.

So you pulled out some celery and had some ants on a log?

I saw some black ants once, and they were getting along swimmingly. Then a fire ant came by and they all started shouting racial epithets at the poor guy.