My uncle sent it with other helpful hints and Snopes has nothing on it.
I am wondering if it is correct and why ants cannot digest cornmeal if it is.
I also wonder why rain would delay the timing.
Jim
mix equal parts of boric acid, sugar and water. Place a couple of drops where you see the ants marching. They’ll take it home to momma. That’s the key: kill the queen.
One thing: once you place the drops, DO NOT TOUCH THE ANTS. Let them do their thing. I know it’s gross, but you can’t disturb them or they’ll go someplace else in your house.
This comes from an almost year-long battle against sugar ants in my house. I won and didn’t have to nuke the site from orbit.
Thank you,
This raises the question of where do you buy boric acid?
Any idea what boric acid does to the queen?
Jim
I once tried, very successfully, an old wives remedy I got from my 100 yr old granny, though it did not involve any cornmeal.
It was cucumber peels. She said they grew on the ground and had a natural ant repellent. She said peel the cuke, jam the peelings into all the cracks and gaps they were seen in or around. At the time, I lived in really crappy student flat in a very old house, and there were really a lot of ants.
I did as she suggested and the ants did as was predicted and disappeared, no product to purchase (I had the cuke!), no danger to my pets. I lived in that flat for another five years, never did it again, never saw another ant.
I know it’s only antedoctal, but it happened just that way. Just thought I’d share!
And good luck! 
You can buy an ant killer called Tarro ( or maybe spelled Terro). It is effective only against sugar ants. The label says to mix a drop of oil in it for “fat” ants but I have found Tarro had no effect for fat or protein ants even when I mixed in the fat or peanut butter as suggested. But it worked great for the sweet or sugar ants.
I have no idea about the digestibility of cornmeal for ants, but I did buy that really huge, heavy book “The Ants” once. Haven’t read much of it as ants give me the heebly jeeblies. There’s no index entry for “cornmeal” and digging around I see nothing else that might say what is what. I may go through it later and see if there’s a known component of cornmeal that might be mentioned, but I dunno if it’d turn up with anything.
As for the rain, I would not be surprised if ants did not go out to forage much during rainstorms since that could destroy their chemical trails to find their way back home or to new food, thus you would have to wait extra time.
Since the ants forage from many places at once, it’s not like it could be a starvation food, right? Unless they say to themselves, “Gosh that one house is terrible, we can’t get food there, let’s go to the next house.” I’m not sure if the hive would be capable of determining that or not.
For an aside, I’ve had ant infestations in multiple houses. (Once was in our kitchen, in the pantry…which was located on the 2nd floor of the house. Clever bugs to find it!) The last two I did not use cucumber peels or boric acid or chemicals or cornmeal, just one drop of liquid soap at each of the holes they were coming in from, and they disappeared post-haste. I do wonder if I was lucky or something and just destroyed their trails or made the house to be considered “bad” to them, since even after the soap evaporated they did not return.
boric acid One of many froogle results.
Tris
You can find Borax in the laundry aisle of your local grocery store. It’s usually sold under the brand ‘20 Mule Team Borax’.
Borax is the sodium salt of Boric acid, and works just as well as the free acid for ant control.
Last I checked, the mechanism of action of the stuff wasn’t well nailed down. It may be an insect neurotoxin, it may interfere with digestion.
And, if you mess up and buy Borat by mistake, then a good laugh will be had by all.
http://www.dirtdoctor.com/view_question.php?id=215
This seems like a correct answer especially seeing how you said it would take a week or so to work. Incidentally, they also say that powered cinnamon is a good ant repellant. Interesting.
Thank you for the answer and link. Sounds like this was not another UL.
I like the idea of cinnamon & cornmeal, sounds interesting.
Jim
The story about cornmeal killing ants sounds as bogus as the legend that grits kills fire ants (sorry, Dirt Doctor).
From a University of Florida site, which refers to this ineffective treatment:
“applying grits to fire ant mounds in an attempt to get ants to eat the grits, which will then supposedly swell inside them and explode the ants (recall that ants can only ingest liquids, so they do not even eat grits)…”
So it’s extremely doubtful that cornmeal would do the trick on your ants.
I’ve had very good results with a hot pepper drench outside (you could use it inside, I guess, if you weren’t fussy about pouring gallons of hot water around your house). Boil up a mess of good hot peppers in water, and drench the ants and anthills with it. Viola - ants be gone.
There’s a fellow who writes a column called something like “The Bug Doctor” who has plenty of recommendations for how to get rid of ants. For outside he suggested a pot of boiling soapy water poured into their entrances. He also recommended ant bait (Grant’s ant stakes, I have used them) which takes a while to use.
Another good non-toxic substance is diatomaceous earth, available in the gardening aisle of many hardware/home supply stores. Don’t get the stuff at a pool store, it’s got something else in it that is less safe.
Anyhow, diatomaceous earth is basically a fine powder sold to kill crawling bugs - it’s very fine clay particles cut their exoskeleton open and they dehydrate. Like crawling through a pool of razor blades. Pleasant, no? If I get an infestation I dust it around with a little paintbrush along their trails, it kills them pretty quick and they lose interest in that area. Vacuum it up a bit later.
Best method of course is to avoid the problem - keep food sealed up, clean surfaces all the time, no standing water.
Where does one buy batteries for your powered cinnamon?
No, seriously, all these repellent things do is stop the ants from coming in at that location. You need to eliminate the nest, or they’ll just move to another part of the house.
Do not get confused and buy Boraxo which is hand soap.
I can’t buy the cornmeal story.
Most insect controls contain boric acid, so look in the insect control areas, as has been said. Pure boric acid is also sold in a pharmacy in crystal form for a medical wash. The other sources have been stated. Boric acid kills them, other stuff like pepper water covers the scent trail.
Eliminating the scent trail is important to stop ants from taking a path again. I wipe down with Windex that contains ammonia, and the trail is broken. I apply the borax sugar solution made for ants closest to where I traced them back to. Elliminating a water source that attracts them is important too. They want water, and a damp bathroom or sink area brings them in, even if the food is gone. Don’t leave food residue around from preparing meals or eating. Windex the surface after washing down the area. The ammonia will help prevent them from showing up.
Grandma bought a product calle “HooDoo” paper at the small mid-west general store in the town where she lived and had ‘nary an ant.’ 100 # bag of sugar in a metal covered metal can, NO Ants! None in the house year round where the HooDoo paper was placed.
I have it on the highest authority: The Master Speaks!
Scroll down to the end of the exchange for theories on how boric acid kills.
Sailboat