Carpenter Ants....Help!

[Yankeesouth]

I may have asked a similar question in the past but I need some help.  Does anyone know a sure fire way to get rid of carpenter Ants?   I have been doing  A LOT of research on them.

I know you have to find the nest.....I know they spawn satellite colonies....I know you have to kill the queen.....I know they like moist areas.

Here is the scenario:  Cabin is in the woods in a pretty much shaded area.  There are dead trees/leaves everywhere.  It does remain moist the vast majority of the time due to lack of sunlight.  I noticed "frass" or aka the sawdust from the ants, behind my panels in the walls and in the some parts of the roof.  Yes this tells me there is moisture.  I cannot afford a new roof and the moisture in the walls is by an old stone chimney that acts like a sponge.  The chimney is also on a side of the cabin that gets the direct rain.

If I cannot completely get rid of the moisture is there still a way to get rid of the ants?   I purchased some Advantix granules and Maxforce gel bait. 

Thanks!

[Redoverfarm]

I had ordered some ant bait off the net that seems to work for me on Carpenter Ants.  When I first see them trailing toward the house I will pour some in a plastic lid, cover w/ coffee (notched top for entry) can to keep the rain out.  They will empty it in a day or two and I repeat until they no longer appear.  I believe it is "Gourmet Ant Bait".  The active ingredient is 'Disodium Octaborate Tetrahydrate".  But anything that contains Boron/Borate usually does the trick.  Yes wet wood is there appetite but maybe this works as their desert as it is honeydo flavored.

There is several post on the forum addressing this.  Just hit the search tab next to your profile tab and enter Carpenter Ants.

Good Luck

[Don_P]

For carpenter ants you have to get rid of the moisture. I've had good luck on pourous chimneys with a silane/ siloxane coating to make it more water repellant. Remove organic stuff from around the perimeter of the house. Ditto on the DOT ant bait, the little sweet eating ants (pith ants) that are beginning their springtime flush through our house really go for Terro, (DOT and sugar). I haven't had a serious carpenter ant problem here so cannot say if it works on them. We get a few scouts, it's too dry, and they disappear. I did soak a log cabin in a solubor (ag grade straight DOT)/ glycol solution and got rid of a serious carpenter ant, termite, powderpost beetle problem but also restored the cabin at the same time, drying up all the leaks, and we finally had an exterminator inject termidor around the foundation after I found a large termite nest just below frost depth, so not sure which really did the job on the ants.