How to get ants out of the garden and do I need to do this?

Hello! In general, I have a positive attitude towards ants. But that was exactly until the moment when they began active work in my garden.

They gnawed the roots of plants, made underground passages for themselves throughout the site.

For a long time I could not put up with this state of things. I had to start active action. And at least for one season I managed to get rid of them. Want to learn how to get ants out of the garden? What are the best ways to do this? Then read on.

How to get rid of ants on the site forever!

Ants come to the site seriously and for a long time, build an ant hill on it and form a colony with the queen-queen at the head. The trouble is that this large family turns out to be extremely voracious and generally brings some inconvenience.

However, garden ants usually manage the dacha, which simultaneously breed aphids - the most dangerous and hardy pest. So is it necessary to get rid of ants in the country?

"Pros and cons"

Recently, the fight against ants in the country has acquired the character of a full-scale war. At manufacturers and in garden stores, you can find a huge number of pesticides that are harmful to all living things, including goosebumps. These insects are believed to be invaluable:

However, there are still more opponents of ant families on the site, because all their advantages are blocked by the indirect and direct harm that these insects do:

In addition, brown, sod, red-cheeked and ordinary garden ants host the plots, and they feed on plants and are 100% pests. Thus, we still need to get rid of the ants in the country and how to do this, we will tell further.

How to choose a tool

The vast majority of ant preparations contain two substances: diazinon and chlorpyrifos.

Chlorpyrifos enters the body of insects through the respiratory system and paralyzes the nervous system. In the soil, the chemical is retained for 110-120 days, and it remains effective against pests for about 1-2 months.

Below we provide a brief table of the main drugs used to destroy garden ants.

How to withdraw from the site

If you are not a supporter of chemical ant control agents, you can try other, more humane methods that allow you to drive ants away from the site without destroying their solid "family". In particular, try the following methods:

1. ants react sharply to various odors. Therefore, you can regularly lay around their shelter the following aroma carriers (though you yourself must be tolerant of them): anise leaves, smoked herring heads, sawdust mixed with mashed garlic. Or simply doused with kerosene on the anthill (but never set fire to it!);
2. if you have wormwood and parsley growing on your site, you should not be afraid of ants, because they also prefer to avoid these plants. Among strawberry plantings, sow garlic;
3. vegetable oil, tobacco ash, chopped tomato and parsley leaves, turpentine and charcoal can also be used;
4. ants avoid trees whose base is treated with hemp oil;
5. the hunting belt protects not only from various caterpillars and small insects, but also the ant “system”. An improved barrier is a strip of foil with foam placed under it;
6. ants are bad swimmers, so you can protect the trees by constructing clay ditches filled with water. The width and depth of the ditches may not exceed 3-5 cm, but in this case the ants will not be able to climb the tree;
7. in order to cause irreparable damage to the anthill, lay bricks, pieces of iron or stones near the nests and pour them with infusion of manure or any herbs (other than those that scare away the ants). After 2-4 days, pick up these objects and pour boiling water over ants, simultaneously filling the passages with hot water;
8. take some yeast (a handful should be no more than hazelnuts) and pour them with a sweet mixture of sugar, water and honey to make a slurry. Spread the mixture on matchboxes and place them around the ant nests, covering with something. After some time, the ants will bypass these places.

How to deal with ants in the garden

Most ants annoy while they are in the garden. If you want to learn how to destroy ants, adopt a few proven methods:

• to scare away the ants, put a rag soaked in kerosene under each fruit bush. Next to the plantings of currants and gooseberries, you can sow calendula - it attracts a ladybug, which actively eats aphids;
• tie a tree trunk with cotton or wool soaked in carbolic solution. Also create a “protective ring” from soot and linseed oil palm-wide;
• attach sugar water bottles to the branches and grease their necks with syrup or anise oil;
• if the ants settled at the roots of the tree, use plain or bleach.Add quicklime to ant heaps and pour water over them. A 20% solution of carbolic acid will also take insects to flight;
• Indirect blows to the ants must be inflicted while fighting aphids. In a bowl of soap-salt or soap-ash solution, dip the tips of the branches and rinse there. Such a "shower" corrodes the skin of aphids and it becomes unviable.

How to protect yourself in the garden

To protect garden crops from ants, various methods are also used and the most effective of them look like this:

How to get rid of the house

Sometimes ants move into the house and begin to destroy food supplies in the home. To combat them, you can use the following methods:

1. place bait, consisting of 50 ml of water, 5-6 g of borax (tetraboric acid salt) and 50 g of sugar in places where the ants gather;
2. sweet tooth goosebumps love jam - especially raspberry, cherry and strawberry. In 500 g of jam, add 20 g of fresh yeast and 5 g of boric acid. Ants will gladly attack the delicacy, but it will most likely be their last - most individuals will die in 2 days;
3. since you can’t use chemicals in the apartment, you need to use safe for humans, but unpleasant for insects. For example, such as sunflower oil, elderberry, tomatoes, wild mint, cloves, wormwood and garlic;
4. take a piece of the old yellowed fat (100-200 g) and fry it on all sides. Leave the lard on a plate near the ant moves. Believe me, rarely is a product capable of deterring small pests so strongly;
5. Boric acid against ants has been proving its effectiveness for several years. It paralyzes the nervous system of insects and they will soon die. It is enough to soak a few sugar cubes with boric acid and leave them in this form in the open. Or you can use 2-3 tsp. dry minced meat and soak them 1 tsp. boric acid.

What to do if you were bitten by an ant

And finally, let's talk about what to do if, during a difficult struggle, several small goosebumps did not hesitate to “grab” your hand or other part of the body.

A slight itch caused by a single bite passes after a few hours and does not pose a danger to humans. It is much worse if an allergic reaction develops, the signs of which are the following symptoms:

• the appearance of swelling, blisters, itching;
• extensive redness of the skin, accompanied by pain;
• nausea, shortness of breath, headache, loss of consciousness.

Treatment with ant bites is as follows:

As you can see, completely getting rid of ants is quite real. Do this without any regret, because real pests settle on your site, which, unlike their forest counterparts, are not useful insects, but only bring harm to your plantations and food reserves.

How to get rid of ants in the garden forever

Summer residents and owners of private houses wonder: how to deal with ants in the garden, and is it worth it? Surely worth it. Insects can cause significant harm to garden crops, orchard and flower gardens.

Are they needed in the garden or is it worth fighting with them?

Some gardeners respond positively to these insects. They claim that black garden goose bumps benefit both the soil and the plants:

Like other insects, ants cause irreparable damage to the site, eating plants and fruits. But the main reason to get rid of them forever is breeding aphids.

Ants feed on the products of her life - a sticky liquid saturated with carbohydrates. In this case, aphids use them as a dairy cow: they grow, breed, and even graze on plants, protecting them from other insects.

But this is only one of the reasons for removing parasites, the fight against ants in the garden is necessary for other reasons:

• in search of sweet nectar, insects often damage plant flowers;
• they damage ripe sweet fruits and berries, for example, poured pears, cherries, currants and strawberries;
• can feast on seeds and young seedlings;
• during the construction of underground passages, they can damage the root system of plants.
• populating hollows, insects gradually turn trees into dust.

As for the birds, they only eat small brown goose bumps, which are also called the "orderlies of the forest." But insects are no longer food for them, but a way to get rid of parasites. Birds bathe in them: they run under the feathers and crush their wings.

The causes of the pest in the area

To get rid of ants in the garden, you need to find out the reason for their appearance. The first signal of danger is the aphid. The presence of these inhabitants of the garden precedes the appearance of garden goose bumps. Aphids are a source of sweet carbohydrates for them. In order to expand the "pasture" they can move aphids to other plants, providing them with food and protecting them from other insects.

The most effective way to protect against insects is to use chemicals, as getting rid of ants in the garden forever is possible only with their help. But for those gardeners who are against similar methods, there are folk recipes using organics and the most unusual ingredients.With their help, you can scare off parasites without harming them.

Chemicals

Before you destroy the ants in the garden, you need to choose the right drug. The selected tool can be universal, and is also suitable for combating other parasites.

"Anteater" is very popular. The active substance diazinon is used against aphids, cubs, weevils, bedbugs, ants, and fireworms. Absorbed through the skin, it causes insect paralysis within 2 days after treatment.

Drugs are used strictly at the indicated dosages. Not only plants infected with aphids are treated, but also neighboring ones. Even when there are no visible signs of the presence of insects at the moment, there is no guarantee that the crop is not populated by pests.

Fighting folk remedies

The use of chemicals is not always convenient, since when processing cultivated plants they can absorb toxic substances. There are many proven recipes. They will help if ants appeared in the garden, how to get rid of folk remedies and what mixtures to use for this, we will consider in more detail.

The easiest and safest way is to use a soap solution. As you know, aphids breathe through the skin, and a soap film will block the insect's access to oxygen.

Such treatment will help get rid of aphids - the main source of their nutrition. Soon, unwanted insects themselves will leave the site. It should be remembered that it is necessary to process the leaves of plants both from above and from below, since aphids most often live on the underside of the leaf.

You can scare away pests with a pungent odor. It is necessary to prepare in advance the infusion of onions or garlic. The folk remedy for ants in the garden is prepared as follows: the fruits are chopped and poured with water, covering the pieces, then tightly closed with a lid or clog.

After 7-10 days, the product is ready, but it must be used with water, in a 1: 1 ratio. The resulting infusion is sprayed with all plants to repel aphids and other unwanted guests.

Tools for gardening

Trees and shrubs are also at risk. Folk remedies from ants in the garden are also suitable for a fruit garden. Plants are treated with the same infusions and solutions. Tree trunks are whitewashed carefully.

Another effective way is the ALT insect garden glue. The stamp is wrapped with a film and an adhesive solution is applied. Goosebumps, in an attempt to transfer aphids to a new place, get stuck in glue and die. Also, the usual foil will help in the fight against insects: tree trunks are wrapped with foil, raising the edge and forming a skirt. Ants are not so flexible, and will not be able to overcome the sharp edge of the foil.

Hunting belts on fruit trees. Many summer residents prefer to fight with the anthills themselves: dig them out and transfer them to the site, fill their tunnels with special gels: The Great Warrior from Leroy Merlin, Absolute, Raptor, or soap solution. But if there are aphids on the territory of the garden and garden, the insects will return.

Protecting flower beds from ants. Pests often populate flower beds. Most often, flower beds are sprayed. Effective drugs such as Thunder-2 or Anteater are suitable for this.

You can scare away pests without harming the plants using citrus peel infusions with a strong aroma, or celandine (a bunch of flowers insist 2 days on the water).

A simple way to remove ants from the garden with folk remedies and not harm them is to install a sweet bait. Just dilute the old jam with water or make sugar syrup, and leave in several places on the site. Insects will regale themselves with refreshments, and there will be no need to breed aphids.

Sweet Ant Bait. Ammonia is often used in pest control. They are filled with anthills (0.1 liter of substance per 1 liter of boiled water).

Ant-ammonia solution. In 10 liters of boiled water, 1 tablespoon of ammonia is diluted, 2-4 tablespoons of sugar are added. After half an hour, the mass will become homogeneous, and it will be possible to process plants by spraying with it. Crops themselves will not receive any harm due to low concentration, and insects will die.

In the fight against ants, it is necessary first of all to get rid of the cause of their appearance - aphids. Protecting the garden and the garden from pests is a long and laborious process, so it is easier to prevent. To do this, it is necessary to apply preventive measures against the re-colonization of insects, using gentle methods and alternative recipes.

How to get rid of ants in the garden or in the garden

For gardeners, perhaps one of the most important issues is how to get rid of ants in the garden. Even at the end they add the word - forever. That's how tired! Garden black ants, this is perhaps the second big garden nuisance after weeds.

But, unfortunately, there is no universal recipe; there is a complex of means and methods that will help to reduce their number to a minimum, to lead them away from those garden gardens where their presence is undesirable.

Features of existence

Black garden ants are indeed pests of the garden. They do not build anthills. Their habitat can be seen by small holes.

In the summer, these insects begin to feed on the sweet aphid secretions. Together with aphids, they form certain communities. A black garden ant protects aphids from various enemies. And she has a lot of enemies. Starting from ladybugs, ending with small birds, which are also not averse to feast on aphids.

Of course, the ants will not drive the bird away, but they can do with the ladybug. If you are lucky, you can see how together they will squeeze out a ladybug from a twig covered with aphids.

In our gardens, greenhouses, ants and aphids are usually inseparable. Recently, aphids are very much like weeds, cultivated plants, too. Aphids suck juice from leaves, stems of plants, thereby causing great harm to the future crop, and it secrets sweet milk that attracts ants. There are many where there are many aphids.

Of course, the gardener receives the main damage from aphids. But ants carry aphids, their eggs in garden plants, drive away from the aphids those predatory insects that feed on the aphids themselves. Therefore, if nothing is done, aphids will breed rapidly. And goosebumps just need this - “pastures” are increasing, they are not threatened by hunger.

If you decide to fight ants, then it will be impossible to do without paying attention to aphids, depriving gooseflesh of food supply. I warn you right away that it is neither possible nor necessary to completely defeat the black garden residents.But to reduce their number, in parallel to reduce the risk of damage to our plant aphids - we can do it.

There are many ways to do this.

Chemicals

There are chemicals that help to remove ants, for example, Muratsid, Anteater, Delicia powder, from which aqueous solutions are prepared, they are watered by the places of accumulation of insects. Pasty House Cleaner, The Great Warrior, others spread the paste-like products on top of cardboards, boards, lay them out where they saw the largest gathering of goosebumps.

They will leave their favorite places when there will not be aphids, that is, there will be nothing to eat. Therefore, I advise you to simultaneously use drugs against aphids - Bison, Confidor-Extra, Decis-Profi, Tanrek, Biotlin, Alatar, BI-58, and others.

A solution of these drugs, falling on leaves with aphid secretions, makes them poisonous also to ants. Eating them, they die. If such treatments are carried out regularly, then there will be no aphids or ants in these areas.

Fighting folk remedies, decoys

There are many folk remedies. For example, pouring burrows, anthill moves with boiling water. The black garden ant does not really like ash or the smell of chopped tomato leaves. Of course, in such ways they cannot be completely defeated, but you can drive them away from some places.

There is another way, by the way, quite effective - pouring the habitats of these insects with urine or, as they say, the contents of a night pot. As a rule, after such "aromatic treatment" insects leave this place.

To do this, we use boric acid, mix equal parts in volume either with honey, or with jam, or with sugar, that is, with something sweet. I usually use a mixture of boric acid powder with sugar.

I sprinkle with this mixture the places of the largest accumulation of insects. For me it is most often the tree trunk circles — especially they like to settle under pears. After a while, they disappear, I think, they just leave this place.

There is another unusual way to drive ants out of their area. Not so long ago I found out that if an ordinary dry millet or semolina is poured on top of an ant heap, then they leave this place. Sprinkle ordinary millet or semolina at the places where the insects gather.

If your site is very infected with goosebumps, it makes sense to use more powerful fighting methods. The goal of more powerful methods is the destruction of the "ant queen." While she is alive, working ants will be on site for sure. The "ant queen" lives underground - a depth of more than one and a half meters. Getting to her is difficult even with a shovel.

In our struggle with the “Queen of Ants” we are on two roads. The first - sweet traps near each fruit tree or berry shrub made from sweet syrup or fermented beer - this is for working ants to reduce their number.

The second - protective belts of adhesive tape, on top of which we apply a gel - poison bait. Her ants will carry inside the anthill, feed her their "queen".

Yes, garden insects can sometimes arrange not only anthills on a strawberry bed, but even nests inside strawberry-strawberry bushes. Most often, this leads to the death of plants.How to help strawberries in this case? To choose a remedy or method of assistance, one must take into account at what stage of development the plants are now.

If your strawberries only bloom, then you can try to arrange poisoned baits throughout the strawberry garden or meadow. Effective bait traps from ordinary baker's yeast mixed with a small amount of honey or sugar syrup (1 tbsp.spoon of dry yeast, 1 tbsp.spoon of sugar or honey).

This is a disastrous treat for ants. To spread it between plants - it is better to take containers with small ones, for example, bottle caps, or spread small pieces of cardboard with this mixture.

And if green berries are already hanging on the strawberry bushes, then spray the plants with ammonia solution (1 tbsp.spoon per 8 liters of water - insist 20-30 minutes). This concentration will not harm the future crop, and goose bumps, they do not like such pungent odors.

The use of all these simple techniques together, in a complex, will help, if you do not get rid of the ants in the garden forever, then significantly reduce their number to the minimum that will not interfere with us in the garden.

Need ants in the garden or is it worth fighting with them

With the question of how to get rid of ants in the garden, every summer resident is faced. Many consider these insects useful, but the Vsadu.ru portal tells why ants are actually dangerous, why they appear, and considers both sparing folk remedies and chemical drugs to combat parasites.

Some gardeners respond positively to these insects. They claim that black garden goose bumps benefit both the soil and the plants:

1. building moves in the ground, they loosen it, supplying the roots of plants with oxygen;
2. pollinate plants and flowers;
3. in the process of protein production, they fight many other pests, larvae and caterpillars;
4. are bird food.

Reality or myth

Like other insects, ants cause irreparable damage to the site, eating plants and fruits. But the main reason to get rid of them forever is breeding aphids.

But this is only one of the reasons for removing parasites, the fight against ants in the garden is necessary for other reasons:

• in search of sweet nectar, insects often damage plant flowers;
• they damage ripe sweet fruits and berries, for example, poured pears, cherries, currants and strawberries;
• can feast on seeds and young seedlings;
• during the construction of underground passages, they can damage the root system of plants;
• populating hollows, insects gradually turn trees into dust.

As for the birds, they only eat small brown goose bumps, which are also called the "orderlies of the forest." But insects are no longer food for them, but a way to get rid of parasites. Birds bathe in them: they run under the feathers and crush their wings.

How to get rid of ants in the garden

Ants are found in any suburban area, because these are one of the most common insects.And although they are considered useful in nature, in large quantities ants can cause serious damage to the garden and vegetable garden. In some cases, they can destroy the crop. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that they do not proliferate beyond measure.

Harm and Benefit

The most important “sin” for which ants deserve to be expelled from the garden is their love for aphids. She is able to secrete drops of sweet juice, which ants willingly eat. They not only accumulate in those places where aphids appeared, but also protect it from other predator insects. And if under other circumstances, ladybugs could protect your beds, then they can not cope with ants.

Moreover, harmful ants themselves spread aphids to new, not yet infected twigs. And some species plant pests on the roots of cultivated plants. In winter, ants carefully hide aphids in their nests, and in the spring they again bring them to young shoots.

And the fight against the aphids in this case will be ineffective, because the inhabitants of the anthill are able to quickly restore its numbers. This is the main reason to get rid of ants, but there are others.

Scout ants may well find their way into your home, which is completely unpleasant. And some of them build nests in wooden buildings, turning wood into dust. For those who have beauty and exemplary order on the site, ants can ruin the look with their nests. On a lawn or rock gardens, they are striking, like molehills.

Only the nests will gradually become larger, and over time, their inhabitants will begin to build new dwellings. It can also be added that these insects often store weed seeds underground, contributing to their germination. For example, because of them, the entire site can be overgrown with celandine.

These insects can also eat fruits and berries from our garden. They can often be found on a strawberry bed, currant bush, plum or pear tree. Perhaps they will cause even greater damage to the crop if they arrange their nests in the roots of plants. In this case, in a couple of years they can easily destroy a young tree, and strawberry bushes will wither away in the first season.

It is not easy to cope with these insects, because their larvae and uterus, as a rule, are securely hidden at a depth. And we are struck by simple workers, the number of which is easily restored. To destroy an ant settlement, you need to get to the uterus or force the ants to move their house to another place.

There are many ways to deal with these insects. These are folk remedies, time-tested, and modern drugs that can be bought in stores. Let's consider them in more detail.

How to restrict access to trees or beds

If you do not set a goal to get rid of ants, but just want to protect your favorite pear or strawberry from them, this is easy to do. Here are some great ways.
To protect a tree or bush, take a car tire and cut it into two parts to get two round containers.

If it’s a seedling, just put half the tire on the ground so that the seedling is in the center. If the bush or tree is too sprawling, then cut the tire on the side.

An even simpler technique. Take an ordinary foil, cut the cones of a suitable diameter from it and stick it on the trunks of the "skirt".Ants are not flexible enough to overcome the sharp lower edge of the foil.

Traditional lime whitening also helps, you can also smear the lower part of the trunk with tar. If you cover the trunk circle with peat, the ants will not like it either. Ants do not tolerate harsh odors that can serve as excellent protection against these insects. You can throw wormwood, mint, parsley, tansy or, for example, tomato tops, around a bed, a separate plant or a greenhouse.

And if you plant these plants around a tree or garden, they will deter pests all the time. Shoots of garlic, with which you can tie the trunks, perfectly help.

How to destroy anthill with folk remedies

If you are determined to get rid of the ants on the site, then do not spend a lot of time on individual individuals. It is necessary to look for a nest or anthill and destroy it so that the insects could not or did not want to restore it.

The most humane way to get rid of ants is to dig out their entire home, put it in a bag and carry it away from the site. In a new place, insects can rebuild their house.

But this occupation is rather laborious, because sometimes you have to dig more than a meter in depth. Yes, and garden ants do not belong to the Red Book insects, so as to protect them so. More often the nest is simply destroyed.

The most affordable way is to thoroughly dissolve the anthill to the full depth and pour boiling water over it. After some time, the procedure must be repeated in case some of the insects survived. Please note that sometimes, if the night fell cold, all the inhabitants of the anthill can crawl to the surface to warm up. This is a great opportunity to get them out.

In addition to boiling water, you can use other poisonous or strongly smelling agents. Here are three proven recipes.

In a ten-liter bucket, mix 2 cups of vegetable oil and cheap shampoo. Instead of shampoo, a dishwashing detergent or dissolved laundry soap is suitable.

Then add more vinegar, preferably a whole bottle. Add water and put this solution on the anthill. For the product to penetrate deeply, poke a hole in the middle with a stick.

A simpler, but no less effective recipe. Take the same bucket of water and pour 10 spoons of kerosene there. So that the smell properly pervades the entire nest, cover it with foil.

Anthills are also sprinkled with ashes, infused with tops of tomatoes from infusions, or they are sprayed with garlic arrows already mentioned. The oil remaining after frying also helps well, but fresh oil is not so effective.

You can soak the peels of a lemon or an orange in a bucket at night, and then pour it on an anthill. And another good and affordable remedy is ordinary ground cinnamon. Ants can’t stand it.

Herring heads at the top of the nest will also not please them. They say that even regular sugar syrup or sweet juice can help. When it enters the ground, it causes the development of yeast bacteria in the soil. They begin to spoil the ant stocks, and the insects go away.

At home, the contents of the bag will be poured onto a ragged nest of harmful neighbors.Forest ants, which will be in a bag along with the soil, will easily drive away garden not only from this nest, but also from the entire site. They themselves, too, will not last long, after 2-3 weeks they will return to the forest.

Shop Protection

It is perhaps the easiest way to get rid of ants with the help of special preparations. Just note that not all poisons will work. After all, ordinary chemicals will not be able to hit the uterus hidden underground.

Therefore, it is worth paying attention to tools designed specifically for ants. As a rule, they do not act immediately, giving workers the opportunity to feed the female with delicious poison.

Reasonably priced "Anteater" is showing itself quite well. The insect that eats it dies only on the second day. The composition of this agent includes the substance diazinon, and other insect preparations are also made on its basis.

It is also worth paying attention to the absolute gel, which is sold in a syringe. Still there is liquid Muratsid, powder for breeding Delicia, pasty Great Warrior and other means. Almost all of them last up to three weeks.

Special adhesive belts, such as Aeroxon, can be good protection for trees. They do not allow ants and other harmful insects to climb up the trunk. Pests either stick or unfold.

The color of the belt is such that it does not attract beneficial insects. There are no poisons that could fall into the wood and fruits. Alt glue works similarly.

Some tips

Do not waste time and energy on the destruction of individual insects, which can scurry along their paths in huge quantities. Their death will not save you from the invasions of new and new worker ants that will breed in the nest.

Do not rush to use strong chemicals on the site, because they fall into the soil, and through it they can return to you with the crop. This is especially important for greenhouses. Try safe folk remedies first. Perhaps nothing more is needed.

If you notice an ant nest, this does not mean that it must be immediately destroyed. First make sure that these ants do harm. Not all of their species breed aphids.

Perhaps the ant settlement in the greenhouse will not only not harm the tomatoes, but will also reduce the number of other pests. Yes, and the ability to loosen the soil will benefit.

If the aphid breeds on the bushes, it may well attract ants, even if there were almost none before. Therefore, it is necessary to get rid of aphids as soon as possible, otherwise you will have to deal with pests in the complex.

Then, most likely, there will not be too many ants. If these insects nevertheless begin to annoy you, try the above remedies. They will certainly help you reduce the number of ants to an acceptable level and get rid of large nests.