Ant Invasion

November 29th, 2009 Leave a comment Go to comments

Overall, insects really are not a problem here in Thailand, and I’ll always contend there are fewer problems here than anywhere else I have lived. There are some, however. There are these small ants, as small as any I have seen (thus no pictures). They will find food anywhere you put it within fifteen minutes. They are amazing. The smallest bit of candy or banana and they are on it in the hundreds. They get into boxed goods like the cake mix and soup mix.

You can protect your food by putting it in the refrigerator. If an ant does get past the seal it will die in the cold. You can use sealing plastic containers, but the seal better be perfect and a temperature change better not pop the lid, like when you take one out of the refrigerator, or closed it in the cool of night. Ziploc bags are unreliable. The ants seem to chew through them much of the time. Some product bags may work. The basic rule is, if you cannot open it yourself without tools, they ants may not be able to get into it either. It is hard to rely on even this rule, however.

The answer seemed to be to put everything into the refrigerator. That is really inconvenient. It’s not possible when Sue is here stocking up in Korat every two weeks. The ant invasion solutions on the internet involve chemicals, sealing everything adequately, being able to seal off your house better than I can here, and maybe an assumption that the ants are not quite so ready or numerous as they are here.

All I needed to do was ask a Thai. I bought six small bowls for the six legs on my cheap aluminum kitchen cabinet. The legs sit in the bowls which are filled with water. The fifty cent blue pipe is needed to fill the back center bowl. It should take more than a month for the water to evaporate, and we can move everything into the refrigerator when we leave for the U.S.

I tested it by leaving the knife out on the counter top after spreading jam on toast. It was there for 24 hours and I did see one ant. It was not eating jam. It must have been looking for a way back to the nest. I theorize it fell from the ceiling. Now if they could learn to do that, and then go to the cabinet bottom and fall to the floor when they want to get off, I could be in trouble. They’ll have to evolve more before they can do that.

So now I have a big cabinet I can store any kind of food in or on. I’ll try to keep the doors closed in case something larger wants to munch, but I have seen no signs of anything like that yet.

Categories: Nang Rong Tags: ,
  1. Thai traveler
    November 30th, 2009 at 10:04 | #1

    hey… great to read all about it…. fun… i loved the “ant ” story…. and isn’t that so true…. the answer is so often right in front of us… but we try and try and don’t take the time to just ask and then listen…. love the info … thank you

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