Little Black Ants (Kitchen Counter Menaces) gassing the queen suggestions wanted

Hi, I have spent a few months trying many poisons to stop these critters from being all over my kitchen. Nothing made a difference for long. So the following is an idea I am currently trying and would like to share and get some ideas from experienced people.

My idea is to slowly feed pest spray into an upside-down paint bucket, sealed at the bottom with sand.
The bucket has two small holes to feed the pest spray, and to feed a small 3L/m aquarium pump. And just place it over the biggest, active mounds.

So, I hope to gas the tunnels for say 48 hours, to kill the queens in each nest in my yard, one at a time.

My problem is, I don't know diddly about sugar ants below ground activity, and whether this could actually work.

Can you guys suggest poisons I might use, pump airflow size, and anythng else you might anticipate that could work.

I'll be back everyday to check for replies. Thanks for reading.

 

Apparently you are talking about outdoor ant nests/mounds? If so, and since they aren't fire ants or carpenter ants, why go through the effort and expense to treat ants that typically aren't a problem? Where are you located? Location is helpful when identifying and treating pests.

Small ant species indoors can be treated with repeated baiting as that will eventually be taken back to the colony by the foragers. Otherwise, non-repellent sprays work well too as they work slowly and the ants don't avoid the treated areas. Spraying over top of the mounds, if outdoors, with non-repellent sprays will work as well as penetrating the nest with mechanical devices which may in fact cause defensive reactions and simply make them move.

 

Thanks PAbugman
I'm in West Australia. I've tried many sprays and poisons inside and outside which help outdoors but in my kitchen the ants come in by the hundreds everyday. These comon approaches didn't work with these ants.

So after some thought I was going to try hi voltage electricity underground to kill them, but decided too dangerous etc.

I now think gassing them in their tunnels might kill the queens and solve the problem for a year or so.

Has anyone ever tried this? I will be trying in about a week, just waiting for aquarium pumps from ebay.

It's late summer here, and after 20 years of these aggresive little ants, I want to win over them. They really are a problem. Also they are very typical looking pure black tiny sugar ants (common name here), no stink and no stripes.

Any ideas of air flow rate (I'm using 2 to 3 litres/min), gaseous poison to use (planning to just use insect spray), or if you thnk it might/wont work at all and why.

I'll be back this week to discuss, and will post results of gassing here in a month or two.

Adios