Your Kitchen Has Everything You Need To Get Rid Of Ant Hills In Your Yard
Even if they aren't the most dangerous kind of ants, having any type of tiny eight-legged hive-mind insects in your yard can be annoying — especially when they start going after your garden plants or getting into your kitchen. However, many common natural methods to get rid of ant hills are either ineffective or can harm your lawn. For example, vinegar is good at repelling ants but won't kill them, making it a great natural insect repellent while camping but not so good as a long-term ant hill solution. Boiling hot water, on the other hand, is good at killing ants but can also kill your surrounding grass by burning its roots.
Luckily, there is one ingredient that is probably already in your kitchen that can easily kill ants — dish soap. Simply making a solution of dish soap and water and then applying it to a nest is enough to get rid of ants for good. This method is tried and tested, as according to Colorado State University, soaps have been used to control insects for around 200 years. And the best thing about this trick? It won't kill your grass. In fact, the most dish soap can do to harm plants is to cause their leaves to get sunburnt when applied in high concentrations on hot sunny days.
How to put an end to ant hills with dish soap
So, now that you know this trick works, how do you do it? First, you need to make your water and soap solution. About two ounces of dish soap for every quart of water should do the trick. Once the soap is added, go ahead and stir to combine, and then pour the mixture directly into the nest. The best time to do this is either in the early morning or late at night when most of the ants will be in the nest instead of outside scouting for food.
Although no one is sure exactly how dish soap kills ants (some believe it clogs their airways and others think it breaks down their exoskeletons), we do know that the mixture will need to touch the ants to successfully kill them. Therefore, it is important to pour in enough soapy water to infiltrate the entire nest and kill the queen. If you don't kill the queen, the nest will likely come back.
Once you've finished with your ant hills, you can use any leftover solution to kill other garden pests — a bucket of soapy water is one of the best ways to kill troublesome stink bugs.