Essential Oils – Natural Ant Prevention
As you may be aware, Atlanta honey company Bee Wild is an advocate for real food. As part of that commitment, we share ways you can incorporate more real food into your menus as well as educate you about alternatives to using harsh chemicals in your home and garden.
What Do You Do When Ants Come into Your Kitchen?
If you are anything like me, you’ve had pilot ants come into your kitchen through little cracks you can’t even find. They are exploring what’s available, and if you leave the situation alone, all of a sudden, “invasion of the ants.”
I saw a few sugar ants and a couple of carpenter ants exploring my kitchen counter the other day, so I wanted to take fast action. Since Bee Wild’ staff is all about walking our talk, I “googled” natural ant prevention and found a cheap, effective alternative to hazardous chemicals – essential oils.
Natural Ant Prevention with Peppermint Oil
For those who don’t know what essential oils are, earlier in the year, I wrote an Introduction to Essential Oils. Once you familiarize yourself with essential oils, you will find, like I did, that there are thousands of uses for them. One of them is natural ant prevention. Apparently, ants can detect and detest the smell of peppermint oil.
How To Use Peppermint Oil for Ant Prevention
- Get some cotton balls.
- Purchase a bottle of Peppermint Essential Oil at a local store (I’ve purchased essential oils at local health food stores and Whole Foods Grocery.).
- Get a medicine dropper (I get mine from a local health food store, but drug stores also have them.).
- Tuck cotton balls in any little crevices: around your doors, windows, where the kitchen cabinets butt up against the counter. I have about 2-2 1/2 feet between each cotton ball. (photo below)
- Take some of the Peppermint Essential Oil out of the bottle with the dropper, and put several drops of the oil on each cotton ball.
- Refresh the oil at least once a week.
Natural Ant Prevention Example
With a few relatively inexpensive purchases, you can keep your home ant free for the entire growing season. I hope you will try this technique and let me know if it works for you, by leaving a comment on this post. I also would love to hear what other uses you have for essential oils. Of course, I’m a huge fan of Citrus Essential Oils because they create so much joy in my life, and I love our Fresh Citrus Honey Body Products because I don’t have to do any of the potion mixing. That’s a win/win in my life!!! 🙂
With warmest regards, QueenBee
