How to fight ants without killing them

These insects are social and form complex colonies. A small but highly organized army where each has a role and function, which invades our home if certain preventive measures are not taken.

The main strategy is to clean and leave no food crumbs within the ants’ reach. Removing the food source eliminates the infestation, but easier said than done. No matter how clean you are, ants have a much sharper sense than ours for detecting crumbs. You clean and disinfect everything, and they come back, because there’s always a crumb you don’t see and they can smell it.

In an ant colony, there are “scout ants,” most are “workers,” and finally, there is the queen, the mother for whom all other ants work. Scouts are the first to enter your house. They find crumbs and alert the workers to retrieve the food.

During this first incursion, scouts leave a pheromone trail guiding workers to the food and back to the nest. Here’s the key: you need to study the ants’ route and apply the specific product exactly along it. This way, the ants themselves, by feeding the queen, poison and kill her, ending the colony from within. They are our best allies in fighting their infestation.