Years ago, one of my mentors advised me to work with St. Peter/Papa Legba for money luck, because he’s an obstacle-breaker. It’s those keys of heaven, don’tchaknow.
So I promised him candy as well as his weekly rum, but only if I earned a specified amount during the previous week. Well, he earned some candy a little while ago, so I placed a dish of jellybeans on his altar.
An open dish of jellybeans. You see where this is going, don’t you?
Now, I have not had ants in my house since we planted our garden last year. But come on, jellybeans! Out in the open! So, yeah, last night I discovered their discovery.
So I took the little saucer out to the garden. And on the way, I remembered Miss Cat teaching us that a business card smeared with honey and left on an anthill is a good old way to spread news of your business far and wide; because all the ants in the world keep in touch with each other.
And that’s why there’s a business card in a dish of jellybeans in my garden.
If you preemptively spray ant poison around your room, it keeps the scout ants from getting in and inviting their friends. A thought for next time, maybe.
Well, we swore off poisons long ago. Moving the saucer outside – which was due to happen anyway – fixed the ants-out-of-place problem. And they were still spreading the word when I checked a few days ago 🙂
Btw, if you find yourself facing a small herd of ants and are squeamish about dispatching them, grab a lint roller. The disposable kind made of sticky tape. You can get hundreds of ants at a swipe. I usually try to “escort” any wayward bugs outdoors but with ants it’s like a hostile invasion. I only hope that my karma will not suffer the ant carnage.
The thing is, when I want the ants to help me “get the word out,” all I really want to motivate them to do is leave the house. Around here, they tend to invade when there’s too much or too little water outdoors – or when I leave sugar lying around 🙂 I’m actually thinking of putting out water for them during the height of summer.
Greetings, we are facing cold weather and ants usually come in during this time. They are invading my food offering and I just wanted to be sure I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Since you live in Ant Country, you might want to dispose of food offerings before bedtime, or even after just a few hours.
When ants invade our house, I follow the traisl back to the little hole the found and came in by. Then I stuff it with a scrap of steel wool. More effective than any folk remedy I’ve tried, and non-poisonous.