Optigard Ant Gel Bait, 4 Tubes x 30-Grams, 1 Plunger and 2 Application Tips, Effective Bait, Formulated with 0.01% Thiamethoxam, Indoor and Outdoor Use, Killer Gel for Most Major Ant Species

Living in the country, we get ants in the same couple of rooms every year. Over the years I've tried every product I could find. I don't like sprays or those square plastic bait stations, I prefer a gel like this. The active ingredient in this product is literally the only thing I've found to actually stop the ants. I treated 4 areas that had a ton of ants, and within 12 hours, they were completely gone! That was over a week ago and the ants have not returned. I love the gel because it can get into tiny areas, it isn't noticeable, and it's easy to use. I also really like the syringe design. Unscrew the little blue cap, pop in the plunger, and it's ready to go. A little bit goes a long way, so this product will last me a very long time. I can't recommend this stuff enough!

We are in southern California and recently had an army of tenacious tiny black ants in our kitchen. They were relentless. They ate through the caulking around the kitchen sink (!) and set up a very comfortable residential retreat behind, around, and underneath our sink. We cleaned, we removed all possible food sources, we scoured around the outside of the home to find a source or trail (no luck - I believe they may have come up one of the plumbing pipes, but as you'll soon learn, their origin story is lost to time), all to no avail.We were stumped. So we started with what we knew - in the past, we had used borax products (e.g. Terro) with great success. Typically the ants would swarm the Terro baits like Studio 54, partying day and night for a day or two and then be completely gone shortly after that.But oh no, not this time, and not these guys. Terro was a joke to them. Either they were immune to it or most of them were too smart for it.Don't get me wrong, dear reader - they occasionally availed themselves of the Terro. Not the same swarming behavior I'd seen in the past, but they did. Quite a few climbed inside the baits and so I optimistically assumed we were on the right track. But after a couple of days went by and I saw zero impact on the population, I decided to put dabs of the Terro along their paths, near their trails on the counter, etc. Some avoided it, but some of them seemed to eat it. But at this point I think they were just pretending in order to mess with me. But regardless of their motivations, it had no real effect. More days went by and the population was unscathed, perhaps even fortified. Were they laughing at me? I began to question everything I thought was true: are there ant vitamins in Terro?Please don't think I'm slamming Terro. I'm sure the product is great for certain kinds of ants and it has worked well for us in repelling previous invasions. But it was useless against whatever species we were facing this time.So I turned to a Reddit sub called AntControl where I learned about Optigard, which is mentioned alongside a few others (such as Advion) as a good prosumer tool for ant control. As residents of California, we have limited options (and I'm honestly glad about that) so that limits our selection somewhat. Also an important lesson is that if you can, figure out the species you're dealing with and whether they like protein or sugar, etc. but that's another conversation.Anyway I ordered a pack of Optigard and the moment it arrived I went to work. I cleaned up all my previous Terro stuff so we had a clean slate, and then put dabs of Optigard at strategic locations. I probably used one-half of one syringe in total.IT WAS LIKE STUDIO 54 AGAIN! The ants absolutely loved this stuff. Within mere minutes they were jamming their sick little faces into the gel like they were bobbing for apples or something. They could not get enough of it. They were muscling each other out of the way to get at the stuff. I swear they were having contests with each other to see who could get the most. I'm not entirely sure about this because it was fairly late, but that first night I think I even saw one of them holding a little beer-bong type funnel while another chugged it like some kind of party an(t)imal.However tempted this made me to resurrect my optimism, I met this behavior with a cautious regard. I'd gotten my hopes up before, after all.The next day the partying continued apace.Over the next 48-72 hours things started getting very quiet. I started noticing something I'd never seen with prior invasions .... corpses! Corpses everywhere. These freaks were just dropping dead in the sink and on the counter. But clearly enough of them hadn't died too soon to bring their party ambrosia back to the nest and queen(s) because after another few days of stragglers, I haven't seen a single ant in months. Not a single ant. And that tells you something about this product.I'm glad I still have 3.5 syringes left in case we get more visitors.Again, your experience may vary based on species, their preferred food types, and your location, but Optigard was amazing for us when our previous arsenal was useless.Five stars.

This gel is easy to use and I was surprised at just how much product there is in light of how little we needed - great value for the price. We have had the same colony of carpenter ants invade our home every spring-summer for the last 4 years (since we moved into this house, so who knows how long they've really been here). Nothing we have tried so far has even come close to eliminating more than a few ants at a time.I put a small amount of this gel under the baseboards close to where we usually see the most ants, and it only took about 4-5 days before we realized we hadn't seen any ants at all... The first few days I noticed that there were ants venturing into areas of the house, like the basement, where they normally had never gone. And the ones we saw there were moving very slowly, unlike their typical behavior. A day or two after that they were gone, and we haven't seen one ant since!Absolutely worth it for us! I thought we would have to pay a ton of money to exterminators to open our walls and extract the colony. It has been a couple weeks now and I still have not seen anymore ants!

Easy to use

Most, but not all ant species eat this up. After a day or two usually you don't see them again.I researched and it was said that sometimes ants like sweet (like this bait) and sometimes they want protein so I also bought Advance 375A which is a protein-based granule. Around my house and yard, 95% of the time ants will take this sweet bait and not even touch the protein bait, so it's probably wise to start with this one. Though I have found a few ant species which will take both at the same time, the preference still seems to be the sweet bait.One negative I found with this product is that the gel and the liquid carrier tend to be separated so usually it will just push out water first, and then the gel will come later, which makes you have to use more than you really need. Also I'm concerned that as this keep happening, when I get near the end of the tube it will be pretty dry and may not come out or be effective.Also, this stuff dries out within a few hours indoors and then usually the ants won't touch it, so you have to keep adding water drops to it and mixing it with the gel so the ants will eat it again. If you put it outside in the sun it will dry really quickly so try to either cover the application with some shade or wait until later in the day so the sun isn't so strong.I've been using this for a few months off and on whenever I have ants in the house or outside trying to crawl into the house and I'm only half way through one tube, so unless you've got a massive infestation the box may last you for years.

works great for tiny black ants on kitchen counter. Just put a thin line in a few places where they are and there will soon be dozens or more swarming around it. They take it back to their nest and share it with others. a day or two of this and they are all gone.

Love this stuff; ants not so much.