Killing insects are not something that I enjoy.  I often take measures to avoid killing them if possible. Something that we forget is that insects are a part of our natural ecosystem and do provide valuable part. Spiders in your home may help catch and other unwanted bugs like flies and mosquitoes. Bees and wasps help pollinate flowers and food crops.  Sometimes you need to compromise when other times you need to make the hard choice to eliminate something like a wasp nest that has made its home under stoop of your front door.

It is not uncommon for yellow jacket wasps to make a home in the ground.  These wasps commonly make multiple colonies and seek out dark areas such as wood piles, foundations, and under vinyl siding.  These wasps prefer a structure that is protected from the elements but sometimes hard to eliminate because of where they make their home.

Yellowjacket nest are not always apparent until it is too late. Hidden nest sometimes are unknown until unveiled by the swarming hoard that has sent your landscaper running and screaming across your lawn. Underground wasp nest can be disturbed by the vibrations of a lawnmower especially when you unknowingly mow over the nest.  

Altho it can be funny to watch it is usually a painful experience because yellow jackets can sting multiple times. Yellowjacket will somehow communicate with one another with the use of some type of pheromone that is secreted when the nest is threatened.  When other wasps detect that pheromone other wasp goes into a search and destroy mode to defend the nest.

Getting stung can be very dangerous for people who have allergic reactions to the stings. Reportedly you have a fifty percent chance that you will have a reaction.

Since pesticides are not always the best option because they are dangerous to humans and other wildlife we sought a natural way to kill a wasp nest located in the lawn.  Mint oil will eliminate most insects and we found that a natural soap product that is very strong with peppermint. Dr. Bronner’s soap is a concentrated soap that has a very strong peppermint smell. They have other types of soap but we made sure to buy the peppermint kind.  Insects also don’t like boiling water and soapy water. Soap does something to their exoskeleton. To kill the wasp we mixed a half bottle of the peppermint soap with very hot water. A 50/50 solution. The solution can be poured down the hole of the nest to kill the wasps. Its best to wait just before dark to do this when the wasp goes dormant for the night otherwise you can put a cheap butterfly net, purchased from Ace, over the hole to keep and stray yellow jacket from escaping a stinging you. Please take special note that you should try to wear protective clothing if you can.  Doing this you have a good chance of killing the ground wasp nest.

We offer special thanks to our wasp stung landscapers, Naperville Elite Landscaping for not only finding the nest but providing some guidance on how to remove the wasp from the lawn.  When asked they say they run into this problem a couple times a year and carry a product called Sting-Kill which will take the sting away and cool off the burning sensation around the sting.  They keep a package of the bee sting kits in their trucks.

Learn more about how to safely remove ants from your home without pesticide.

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Having ant invade your kitchen is a complete nightmare. They will climb on you cutting board while you are preparing dinner. The will invade your garbage can creating a trail of ants back and forth to the trash and they will actually get into your food. I have seen chocolate covered ants but when they actually get in your coffee or climb into your sandwich that is the last straw.

So the big question is how to you mitigate these invaders safety? Using a handheld vacuum to displace the ant seem to be a temporary solution because more will take their place. Using pesticide is a dangerous consideration because any level of toxic chemical exposure is just not acceptable in today’s world. Potential exposure to pesticides should be avoided at all cost due to adverse health effects, especially in children, pregnant women and even your loved pets.

So Here Are Some Solutions To Try:

Using Essential Oils To Get Rid of Ants

Disrupt the ant trail with natural essential oils. You can actually block the ant pheromone trail with great smelling botanical scents. The strong odors will interfere with the ant ability to follow the pheromone trail.

The essential oils that work are peppermint essential oil, Clove Oil and Tea Tree essential oils. To do this you place a few drops of essential oils on a cotton ball and wipe it on the ant’s entryway. You can also leave the cotton ball in a cabinet for a few days. Repeat the process of wiping the areas and leave a freshly infused cotton ball until the ant move.

Caution for Bird Owners: Birds have a very sensitive respiratory system and using essential oils near your avian will kill you’re a bird. Be very cautious when using these strong smelling essential oils.

2. Use Dr. Bronners’s Soap as a spray.

Reportedly the liquid soap manufactured by Bronner’s will dissolve the coating the and has on its exoskeleton (outside of the ant). In addition, Dr. Bronner’s has a peppermint oil soap that will disrupt the ant’s pheromone trail. The soap is great smelling too.

So how do you prepare your soap spray? Simply fill a spray bottle (1-quart size) and water to almost all the way to the top then ad approximately ¼ cup of the liquid soap to the spray bottle and shake.

To use the spray, always shake the bottle first then spray where the ants are coming into the house or whatever you see them. Repeat spraying the area until the ant are gone.
Dr. Bronner’s soap can be purchased at Trader Joe’s & Whole food supermarkets. The nice thing is that not only can the soap be used to deter ants. The universal soap is refreshing to use cleaning everything.

SPECIAL NOTE: Bird respiratory systems are very sensitive. Do not use strong smelling essential oils or soaps with these oils near your pet birds. A strong smelling chemical will kill your bird.

3. Using Boric Acid and sugar

Using a mixture of boric acid and powder sugar will kill the ants. The ants will be attracted to the sugar and eat the mixture of boric acid/powder sugar and will die. Boric acid can be purchased online places like Amazon.

Boric acid is considered safe to use. As a rule of thumb, it’s not something that you would want to ingest but is considered less lethal than table salt. You would have to eat 0.49 lbs of boric acid for a lethal dose.

To prepare the boric acid solution mix 1 teaspoon of boric acid with 10 teaspoons of sugar and mix in two cups of water to dissolve. You can pour the mixture over some cardboard or soak some cotton balls with the mixture, and leave it out for the ants to consume. This is basically the mixture that liquid ant bait is that you would buy at a hardware store.

Keep placing the traps near the places where you see ants. You will notice the ant diminish as they die off. Generally, it will take approximately two weeks.

This is something that you will want to keep away from children animals and your pets.

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