David Oi, Mentor

Charles Fletcher removing a colony of Argentine ants.

During the summer Charles Fletcher conducted solid and liquid bait attractancy tests for six types of baits, on both carpenter ants and Argentine ants.

Examining a colony of Argentine ants.

Charles' Abstract:

Attractants Test for the Florida carpenter ant & Argentine ant

A test was conducted with granular and liquid ant attractants, to determine which attractant would be fed on the most by the Florida carpenter ant, Camponotus floridanus. For the granular attractants, a proprietary ICF ant bait was preferred with 33% of the ants feeding on it. The Multiple Species Ant Attractant was preferred among the liquid attractants, with 24% of the ants feeding on it.

For a second project, the objective was to examine the effect of rearing diet on bait feeding preference by the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile. Colonies of Argentine ants were reared on either 10% sugar water or corn syrup for two weeks. For the colonies which were fed 10% sugar water, 51% of the ants fed upon the 25% sugar water, while 35% fed upon 10% sugar water and 14% fed upon corn syrup. For the colonies which were fed corn syrup, 55% of the ants fed upon the 25% sugar water, while 34% fed upon 10% sugar water and 10% fed upon the corn syrup. The rearing diet did not have an effect on the feeding preference among baits in this study.