Ijc f nmulian ^utomolorjist. 



Vol. XLVIII. LONDON, NOVEMBER, 1916 No. 11 



POPULAR AND PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGY. 

 The Control of Ants in dwellings. — A New Remedy.* 



BY ARTHUR GIBSON, CHIEF ASSISTANT ENTOMOLOGIST, DEPARTMENT 



OF AGRICULTURE, OTTAWA. 



A simple remedy for the control of ants in dwellings has long 

 been a desideratum. The usual recommendations are: locate the 

 nest outside and destroy the occupants by pouring into the entrance 

 a quantity of bisulphide of carbon, kerosene emulsion, or ev^en 

 boiling water; trap the ants by placing on the shelves or other 

 parts of the house frequented, sponges which have been soaked in 

 sweetened water and which afterwards, with the ants therein 

 collected, are dropped into boilinj water; etc. Such other well- 

 known recommendations as have been made from time to time 

 need not be mentioned here. 



During the summer of 1916, the common carpenter ant, 

 Camponotiis pennsylvanicus, was extremely abundant in a summer 

 cottage in the Gatineau hills near Chelsea, Que., which my family 

 occupied throughout the season. They were particularly numerous 

 about the kitchen, frequenting especially a cross-beam near the 

 chimney, close to which they evidently had established their 

 headquarters. From this point they wandered throughout the 

 kitchen and dining-room, getting into bread and cake boxes, etc., 

 in fact, proving generally a decided nuisance. The problem of 

 controlling ants in dwellings, therefore, became an immediate 

 personal one, but fortunately a very simple one. Knowing the 

 success which the United States Bureau of Entomology had had 

 in controlling roaches with sodium fluoride, I obtained some of 

 this powder and applied it during the evening of May 21, by 



Contribution from the En*-omological Branch. Dept. of Agriculture, Ottawa. 



