I. General Facts about Sugar Ants

Getting rid of ants is never a simple proposition, despite their simple nature. Sugar ants engage in a behavior pattern known as "satelliting," "fractionating" or, more commonly, "budding." Part of the colony migrates to a new location, which contrasts with the more common mechanism of colony reproduction where single females disperse and independently found colonies after a reproductive swarm. A queen, together with a few workers carrying immatures (eggs, larvae and pupae), leaves the nest and sets up a new colony elsewhere. Budding is a major factor in the rapid spread of infestations.

Despite their name, sugar ants eat not just sugar and sweets, but other scraps of food as well. In fact, the term sugar ant is but a misnomer. The real sugar ant is a native of the Australian continent, and exclusive to that part of the world. Pavement ants and Pharaoh ants are most often mistakenly referred to as sugar ants, and they happen to be the most abundant ants on the North American continent.

For the purposes of maintaining simplicity in this article, both Pharaoh and Pavement ants will be referred to as sugar ants.

II. Sugar Ants as Pests

During early spring, colonies attempt to conquer new areas and often attack nearby enemy colonies. These result in huge sidewalk battles, sometimes leaving thousands of ants dead. Because of the sugar ants’ aggressive nature, they often invade and colonize seemingly impenetrable areas. In summertime, the ants dig out the sand in between pavement to vent the nests.

Sugar ants will eat almost anything, including insects, seeds, honeydew, honey, bread, meats, nuts and cheese. The species does not pose a public health risk, but can contaminate food and should be avoided.

Nests can be very small; for example, they can be located between sheets of paper, in clothing or laundry, inside furniture, within food, and so on. Nests usually occur in wall voids, under floors, behind baseboards, in trash containers, under stones, in cement or stone wall voids, in linens, in light fixtures, and so on.

They prefer dark, warm areas near hot water pipes and heating tapes, in bathrooms, kitchens, intensive care units, operating rooms, and so on. They are "trail-making" ants and often are found foraging in drains, toilets, washbasins, bedpans and other unsanitary sites, as well as in sealed packs of sterile dressing, intravenous drip systems, surgical wounds, and medical equipment.

III. Basic Sugar Ant Control

Sugar ant control is very much a matter of daily routine during the months when sugar ants are a problem (March through September), particularly in the kitchen. Below is a list of things you can do to control sugar ants and prevent a sugar ant infestation in your home.

* Clean and Dry Kitchen Sink: If you want to control sugar ants, you need to keep your kitchen sink clean and dry. Sugar ants love dirty sinks and the water you leave them to help wash down the leftovers.

Make sure to rinse out any dishes you’re going to leave in the sink over night. When you do clean the dishes, make sure you rinse and wipe down the entire sink to make sure you haven’t left residual sweets, food, or moisture behind.

If you’re really picky about cleaning, you might even want to try pouring a little bleach down the drain to make sure the smell of rotting food doesn’t attract more ants to your kitchen. Dish drains also need to be emptied and wiped down before the end of the day.

* "Bleached" Counter Tops: Wipe down kitchen counter tops with bleach each night to get rid of sugar ants. They love a dirty countertop almost as much as they love a dirty sink. Wiping your countertops with bleach not only helps sanitize your kitchen, but also breaks down the pheromones that ants use to follow each other to sources of food.

* Mop Your Floor: Sweep and mop your kitchen floor with bleach every night during the summer to control sugar ants. It is in your best interest to sweep and mop your kitchen floor after every meal, or at least once in the evening to make sure any pheromone trails a scout sugar ant has made aren’t left for other sugar ants to follow. Scraps of food and residual sugars are easily swept away with a bucket of warm water and bleach.

* Vacuum Floors: Vacuum the floors of spaces where food is regularly consumed to avoid inviting sugar ants into your home. Sugar ants also eat bread crumbs, certain types of vegetables and meat, and even the remains of other pests that could be hiding in your carpet. Make sure that you get all of these things off your carpet if you want to get rid of sugar ants.

* Taking out the Trash: Use strong garbage bags and take the trash out regularly to avoid sugar ant infestations. It’s often the case that a garbage bag gets punctured, dripping fruit juice or some other kind of liquid onto the floor while you’re taking out the trash.

Make sure to use durable garbage bags, even garbage bags that use Arm & Hammer baking soda to deodorize themselves. It goes without saying that taking out the trash on regular basis will reduce the chances of sugar ants finding their way into your kitchen.

IV. Natural and Organic Sugar Ant Control

Using vinegar to clean instead of bleach is a good way to naturally control sugar ant invasions. Acetic acid, the acid in vinegar that makes it smell so strong, not only naturally deodorizes (or odorizes, as the case may be), but is one of nature’s most powerful cleaning agents.

Using vinegar instead of bleach is acceptable, and nothing can be more repulsive to sugar ants than white vinegar. Make sure you use white vinegar, and not apple cider vinegar or something like that. The less sugar the better.

Whole cloves are apparently a good way to repel invading sugar ants. Whole cloves have been used to help prevent infestations of all sorts of insects. It may be the compounds that produce the strong smell in cloves that many pests do not like.

If you leave some whole cloves laying around the house, especially along baseboards and under counters, you will probably have less sugar ants scurrying about – and perhaps a better smelling home, if you like the smell of cloves, that is.

Bay leaves are another one of those natural home remedies to control sugar ants. People who’ve tried bay leaves say that they do in fact keep ants away. Bay leaves are usually put under countertops where food is prepared and near entrances where ants are likely to come in.

V. Little Black Ants

Little black ants have also garnered the name "sugar ant," though their real name is, well, black garden ant (Lasius niger). Not a lot is known about little black ants, except that they eat just about anything (including other insects), and they really like rotting wood and dark spaces.

Getting rid of little black ants is similar to eliminating sugar ants. Sweet bait can be used to control little black ants indoors, and protein baits can be used to control little black ants outdoors.

VI. Killing Sugar Ants

* Sugar Ant Bait: The most common ant bait used to get rid of sugar ants is called sweet bait. The most common ingredient found in sweet ant bait is boric acid, or Borax. Most household ants (pharaoh ants, pavement ants, and little black ants included) are prone to the poison known as Borax.

Borax is a mineral mined in the deserts of California, refined and dissolved into all manners of ant bait systems. It is generally non-toxic to humans, though inhaling or ingesting large amounts of it isn’t advisable. It is a slow-acting poison, which means that when the ants eat the bait (usually corn syrup), the poison doesn’t kill the ants right away.

The ants take some of the sweet bait back to the colony with them and dispense the poisonous meal to other ants. This is how colonies of ants are exterminated, and sugar ants are the easiest ants to kill because they’re small, voracious scavengers. If you want to get rid of sugar ants or kill a sugar ant colony quickly, Terro brand sugar ant bait is the best.