Borax ant trap with handle

thingiverse

We had an ant infestation and discovered a sweet-but-deadly mixture involving borax, which ants mistake for food and carry back to their colony. The poison ultimately kills the queen, putting an end to our ant problem once and for all. I designed and built a simple poison holder that's easy to fill with the deadly liquid and accessible to the ants. A handle was added because picking up this device is nearly impossible without it. Although we didn't need to 3D print something, as many household items can serve this purpose, I decided to do it anyway because it was so straightforward. To make the poison, combine one tablespoon of borax with three tablespoons of sugar, one to two tablespoons of hot water, and one tablespoon of syrup (maple or caramel work well). Mix everything together, stir until cool, then pour the liquid into ant traps and place them near any ant highways. As soon as an ant finds it, they leave a trail that other ants follow, leading them to the poison. Within an hour, the traps will be overflowing with ants. Resist the temptation to interrupt them, as you want them to consume the liquid and take it back to their colony. Within a day or two, the ants should stop. The .py file is a SolidPython script used to generate the objects, which is simply a Python wrapper around OpenSCAD. It's included for reference, but I don't expect anyone to use it.