Bug Proof?

T Minus 76

Having just come down into our kitchen to make a morning ‘cuppa’, it struck me that we need to change our habits, as we leave our relatively sanitised UK life for life in the tropics.

The kitchen is not particularly messy this morning but …

1. on the side of the sink lie some unwashed cups from late night coffee
2. the lid to the recycling bin is slightly ajar
3. two tea bags sit on a plate (somehow they never made it to the recycle bin!)
4. the lid to the tea jar is open.
5. in the cupboards food lies loosely wrapped
   • a packet of prunes is not sealed
   • a packet of Ryvita is upturned but open
   • biscuits sit in their own individual packets but in open boxes

We need to change!
We did have some ants last week a few well mannered British ants :-). We politely asked them to leave (removing the recycling bin, emptying it’s contents and washing it up. Being British ants they obliged and we haven’t seen them since. My understanding is that African ants are less polite. A fellow blogger has recounted this week their experiences with ants in Tanzania. Tanzanian ants seem much more assertive than their British cousins. I have read elsewhere of their relentlessness when it comes to food. Food cannot be left out or accessible and sealed containers are going to be a “must” .
My experiences in the Vietnamese jungle show that tropical ants will find food within seconds.

The photo above shows what happens when a small drop of jam fell on the table whilst having breakfast at the rangers hut in the middle of Yok Don. These ants were tiny and vociferous – if you drove them away they were back in seconds.

Don’t ask me why I had a 1p piece with me in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle, but it’s a good size guide.

So we are going to have to get a lot better at storing food or else suffer from plagues of ants. I know what I prefer.

P.S. I read an interesting method of controlling ants is to mix equal amounts of icing sugar (it must be icing sugar) and bicarbonate of soda and spread it around the edges of the room. The ants unable to distinguish the particles transport it back to the nest. The bicarbonate is ingested and reacts with their own body acid and they explode!

For those fellow bloggers from the tropics what are your tip and tricks for being more bug proof?