The World's Best Ant Poison?

[roscoedoh]

This was sent to me from a good friend and I do not know the validity of the info herein. But, I'm going to try it on the fire ants in my yard due to the present stock of Nutrasweet on hand. Who knows -- maybe it will work (?)

 

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From the June 2006 Idaho Observer: Aspartame - The World's Best Ant Poison contributed by Jan Jensen of WELLthy Choices We live in the woods and carpenter ants are a huge problem. We have

spent thousands of dollars with Orkin and on ant poisons trying to keep them under control but nothing has helped.

So when I read somewhere that aspartame (Nutrasweet) was actually developed as an ant poison and only changed to being considered non- poisonous after it was realized that a lot more money could be made on it as a sweetener than as an ant poison, I decided to give it a try. I opened two packets of aspartame sweetener, and dumped one in a corner of each of our bathrooms. That was about 2 years ago and I have not seen any carpenter ants for about 9 to 12 months. It works better than the most deadly poisons I have tried. Any time they show up again, I simply dump another package of Nutrasweet in a corner, and they will be gone for a year or so again. Since posting this information I have had many people tell me of their success solving ant problems with this substance, when nothing else worked. We found later that small black ants would not eat the aspartame. It was determined that if you mixed it with apple juice, they would quickly take it back to the nest, and all would be dead within 24 hours, usually. I have found that sometimes it will kill them, and sometimes it does not. Not sure why, may be slightly different species of ants or something. Fire Ants: We got our first fire ant hill about 2 weeks ago. Poison did not work. We tried aspartame and the ants ignored it until we got a light rain. It was just a sprinkle, enough to moisten the Nutrasweet and ground, but not enough to wash it away. They went crazy, hundreds of them grabbing it and taking it back into the mound. When I checked the mound 2 days later, there was no sign of the fire ants. I even dug the mound up some, and still saw none of them. How does it Work: Aspartame is a neuropoison. It most likely kills the ants by interfering with their nervous system. It could be direct, like stopping their heart, or something more subtle like killing their sense of taste so they can't figure out what is eatable, or smell, so they can't follow their trails, or mis- identify their colonies members, so they start fighting each other. Not sure what causes them to end up dying, just know that for many species of ants it will kill them quickly and effectively. As with any poison I recommend wearing gloves and washing any skin areas that come in contact with this poison, and avoid getting it in your mouth, despite anything the labeling may indicate. I suspect it will work for other insects such as yellow jackets as well, but have not tested that yet. More information on this fantastic poison can be found at: www.dorway.com

 

[Doble Troble]

Thanks for the info, Jason.

 

We had a carpenter ant problem a while back and had to pay a professional to get rid of them.

 

Next time I'll try aspartame first.

[fritz]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this working on carpenter ants (but why in hell did your exterminator allow them in your bathroom?).

 

On fire ants, I doubt if it will be effective. After all, the latin name of the imported fire ant means "conqueror". And they do just that.

 

fritz

[Dr.Hess]

This would be easy enough to test, especially around fire ants, which we fortunately do not have here just yet. I hear they are on the way, and in a way, I _almost_ prefer them to the ticks. At least you can find the fire ants and blast them. I never had a problem around the house as long as I could get some good insecticide. Saw a guy on TV that invented a fire ant killer. He hooked a cake pan up to a lawn mower. The carbon monoxide would kill the whole nest. He had to go to a neighbors yard to demonstrate it because all his fire ants were dead.

 

However, I think it is BS. A search of Medline only turned up http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002444.htm

which pretty much says aspartame isn't going to hurt you unless you have PKU. And it is made from phenylalanine and aspartic acid. No mention is made of formic acid, something that is naturally occuring in ants anyway, not just fire ants. Formic means ant in Latin. Also, the Idaho Observer, while an interesting looking publication, doesn't look like the number one cited source of informatoin in the journal world. Fringe would be a better description. Not necessarily wrong, just not terribly well researched.

 

Now sorbitol, that we used to use to suck the water out of the patient's brain. Just pump them full of the stuff. Makes you think about that "sugar free" product.

 

Dr.Hess

[tinkerfive]

Perhaps the good doctor H. may have an opinion on this theory.

 

Maybe it works like this....

 

Since it has no nutritional ( caloric ) value and mimics the sweetness of sugar.

The ants eat it up and ant metabolisim being what it is they just starve to death.

 

What do you think?

 

Tinker

[odies dad]

Actually Astartame is a neurotransmitter and is toxic.

However it is cheap and just like high fructose corn syrup even though it causes health problems, the market prevails and it is put in just about everything we eat or drink.

(One of the other Docs)