Ants Repellents
Ants come out to play, more often in summer, with something as simple as a bunch of flowers from the garden. There are many commercial products for keeping ants at bay, but we found another way.
Objective:
To find out the effectiveness of the three kinds of food (onion, garlic, red chili) in keeping ants away from chocolate.
To keep food from being contaminated by ants a household environment, people may use chemical insecticides. Most of the contents of chemical insecticides are stable and are non-biodegradable. They contaminate the environment and may even cause food-poisoning when accidentally eaten. We wonder if food with strong pungent taste could be used to replace such insecticide in repelling ants. The food we choose are onion, red chili and garlic. These substances are organic, biodegradable and edible. Therefore the problems mentioned above could be avoided.
Methods:
1. Pure extracts of the 3 kinds of food (onion, garlic, red chili) were prepared.
2. A circle of diameter of 7 cm was drawn in the center of a tray which is fitted with a transparent cover. Four trays prepared.
3. The circles were pasted with 3 ml of onion, garlic and chili respectively, the fourth circle was left empty. A piece of chocolate was put in the centre of the circle.
4. Ten active ants collected from garden were put in each tray.
5. The number of times the ants entered the circle, and the number of ants entered the circle and were killed were counted.
6. Steps 4, 5 were repeated and the average number were obtained for more reliable results.
Results:
|
|
Average number of times ants entered the circle |
% of ants entered and were killed (total number of ants killed/total number of times ants entered) * 100% |
|||
|
1 trial |
2 trial |
Average |
Total number of ants killed |
% |
|
|
Garlic |
1 |
2 |
1,5 |
3 |
100 |
|
Red chili |
6 |
0 |
3 |
3 |
50 |
|
Onion |
3 |
2 |
2,5 |
0 |
0 |
|
Empty |
9 |
7 |
8 |
0 |
0 |
Conclusion:
The effectiveness of the 3 kinds of food to repellent ants is: Garlic juice -> Red Chili juice -> Onion juice
- Garlic extract is very effective in keeping ants away from food and can even kill them instantly
- Red chili extract works well in in repelling ants but not in killing them.
- Onion extract repes ants but cannot kill them.
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