Sugar Ant Bait Dish

Each late spring the little sugar ants invade our kitchen, searching for little bits of food scraps.  To them a crumb of food looks like a feast for hundreds.  Once they find food, they leave scent trails and before you know it there are hundreds of them.

The fix is to mix up a batch of sugar-with-Borax liquid and leave it on their trail.  Once they find it, they'll tell all their friends and you have a feeding scene.  They bring the mix home to the nest, where the Borax does its job, killing the queen and nest.  Problem solved.

This 3d printable "trough" is just the right size and shape.  You put a small amount (a teaspoon or less) of the liquid in the middle, and before you know it you'll have a hundred or more ants happily chowing-down.

Please see the photo for example, this is an actual shot of one of the feeders after only two hours out on the counter.

Here's the mix:

One teaspoon of Borax
Four tablespoons of ordinary sugar
1/2 Cup of warm water.

Mix the above until it's all dissolved.  You'll have way too much, but you can put it in a jar for later use.

We have found this to be extremely effective, the ants are totally gone within two days.