How to Test Ant Repellents

Building

• 1

  Put the gloves on. Spray, spread or otherwise coat the inside of the tubes with the ant repellent products, taking care to evenly coat the entire tube.

• 2

  Place the bottles on end. In half of the bottles, place 20 ants per bottle. In the other half, place a roughly equal amount of sugary food.

• 3

  Wrap the paper around one end of the tube, and tape it in place. Wrap the other end around a bottle with ants in it, and tape the paper to the bottle. The paper should form a funnel between the bottle and the tube.

• 4

  Place the taped bottle horizontal on a flat surface. Repeat the paper and tape construction for the other end of the tube, this time attaching a bottle with a sugary substance in it. Repeat the process for however many ant repellents are being tested.

• 5

  Poke several small holes in the paper to provide air to the ants. Be careful not to make the holes large enough for the ants to escape from.

Testing

• 6

  Start the timer once all testing apparatus have been constructed. Testing times may vary, but an hour should be an ample amount of time to test whether the ants are willing to brave the ant repellent.

• 7

  Come back to the testing apparatus after an hour is up. Count how many ants are in each sugary substance bottle. The bottle that contains the least amount of ants corresponds to the most effective ant repellent.

• 8

  Repeat the test several more times with more batches of ants and cleaned equipment if you want to check your results.

• 9

  Release or otherwise dispose of the ants once the experiment is over. Be sure to thoroughly clean all testing equipment if you plan to reuse it for any other purpose.