How to Make Your Own Borax Ant Killer: Liquid + Dry Recipe

I've got ants everywhere in my garden. Every time I go back to check on my plants or pick vegetables, I get bitten — and these things bite like crazy. I'm against killing animals and insects when I can help it, but sometimes you have to deal with pests to save your vegetables. Or save yourself.

You can buy ant killing solution from Lowe's or Home Depot for about six bucks. It contains borax as the active ingredient. Or you can buy a box of borax for the same price and make about a hundred of those bottles yourself.

Here's the trick though: you need to make both a liquid solution and a dry compound. The ants that drink the liquid solution die pretty fast. But the ants that carry the dry food back to their nest feed it to the larvae and the queen. That's the only way to get to them. If you only use the liquid, you'll kill some workers, but the queen keeps producing eggs and the population bounces back.

• Borax (20 Mule Team brand works fine)
• White sugar
• Water
• Plastic bottles (small water bottles or soda bottles work)
• Face mask (borax dust isn't fun to breathe)
• Scissors or knife to cut notches

Step 1: Make the Liquid Solution

Put on your face mask. I use a medical-grade one because I have allergies, but any dust mask works.

Add 1 tablespoon of borax to a plastic bottle. Then add 4 tablespoons of sugar. You need at least four times as much sugar as borax to mask the taste so the ants actually take the bait. Add 1/4 cup of water, close the bottle, and shake it up.

That's your liquid trap done.

Step 2: Make the Dry Compound

Same ratio — 1 tablespoon of borax and 4 tablespoons of sugar in another bottle. Add just a couple drops of water, then shake or stir it. The compound should stay on the dry side, not turn into paste.

Step 3: Cut the Entry Holes

Cut a notch near the bottom of each bottle, big enough for ants to walk through. If you have kids or dogs, use a glass mason jar instead and poke holes in the lid — keeps curious fingers and paws out.

Step 4: Place the Traps

Put the traps right next to ant mounds or along ant highways. Keep the notch facing up so the liquid doesn't drip out. I placed mine alongside my raised beds and right on top of the mounds.

The traps worked. The liquid trap caught flies and a lot of ants. I could see ants crawling right on top of and inside the liquid trap — they were taking the bait. The dry compound trap had ants in it too.

A few dead ants in the trap itself doesn't look like much, but that's not the point. Most of the ants take the bait and leave the trap. They die back in the nest or feed it to the colony.

I saw a major reduction in ants in my backyard after a week.

Fighting ants is an uphill battle. It's like fighting white walkers in Game of Thrones — no matter how many you get rid of, more keep coming back. This method is the best way to control them, but you'll probably need to reapply traps periodically.

Also, if it rains, your traps get ruined. Check them after storms and replace as needed.