Inspect the area to be treated to find the ant trails. Ants prefer to follow lines, and these commonly include fence rails, concrete paths, pavers, tree trunks, branches, decking, retaining walls, bark mulch, building structures, etc.

Application Method

• Shake Hawkeye Ant Spray well before using and add 50mL of product per litre of water (e.g. 250ml per 5L of water).
  Close and mix the spray solution well.
• Spray all the identified trails to the point of, but not past run off.
  Ensure the width of the spray band is wider than the ant trail.
• Spray entrances to nests and areas other than trails such as exterior walls of buildings where ants are moving. Spray bark, mulch, stones, sand and other porous surfaces liberally to ensure good coverage.

It is also possible to apply the spray in a band 1 meter out and half a meter up from the outside of a building. Apply at a rate of 1 litre to 20 square meters of treated area. Do not spray if rain is expected within 4 hours.

Hawkeye Ant Spray contains additives that prevent it from washing away in rain, but these may be visible on very smooth or polished surfaces such as glass. Do not apply to these surfaces.

THINGS NOT TO DO: 

SURFACE SPRAY ONLY – DO NOT spray into the air or at higher rates than stated on this label.

DO NOT spray onto clothing, footwear, soft furnishings surfaces, or utensils that come into contact with food.

DO NOT use on food crops.

DO NOT spray pets. Remove pets from treated areas before application. Cover fish tanks before application.

Hawkeye Ant Spray contains Indoxacarb as the active ingredient. Indoxacarb is one of the safest insecticide active ingredients available today due to its mode of action. Indoxacarb is converted by enzymes inside the insect to the toxin that kills the insect through blocking of nerve impulses from its nerve cells. This causes the insect to slow down to the point of paralysis – the opposite effect to pyrethroid active ingredients found in Hawkeye Spider and Insect Spray and the majority of home use sprays and aerosols in New Zealand.

Mammals such as people and pets do not contain the specific enzymes that break Indoxacarb down to the toxin that kills insects. This means it has a low toxicity to people and is perfect to be used in and around the home as a result.

Hawkeye Ant Spray has been specifically formulated for outdoor use. It contains rainfastness agents that will prevent it washing away in significant rain events (even up to 100mm of rain), as well as additives that reduce weathering and UV degradation of the active ingredient. After rainfall, spray trails require daylight on them to reactivate the active ingredient and start it working again. This is a result of the functionality of the rainfastness additive which encapsulates the active ingredient during rainfall to protect it and is then weathered off rapidly by sunlight. This may cause some delay to the product working again immediately after rainfall.

A lot of pest treatments found on the Hawkeye website recommend multiple products be used to get the best result. Consider each product to be a tool that is used and in order to get a good outcome a variety of tools must be used, much the same as its not possible to build a house with only a hammer, a number of tools are needed. In the case of Hawkeye Ant spray, other products such as Hawkeye Ant Bait and/or Hawkeye Flea, Ant and Roach Spray are recommended for best results. The reason for this is because an outdoor ant nest is likely to be large and a higher amount of active ingredient is necessary to eradicate the biomass of the ant nest. The best way to achieve this is to get the active ingredient to the pest infestation from as many sources as possible (eg ingested from bait, contacted from spray outside and also picked up from their trials inside). With a large nest that has multiple queens, such as that often found with Argentine Ants or White footed Ants follow up treatments are likely to be needed to ensure the nest is completely eliminated. Failure to do this may mean that a small part of the nest may survive undetected and will re-emerge at a later date.

Ants will also ‘move in’ to areas where there are no competing ant species. This means that if you successfully eradicate all the ant nests on your property, after a period of time ants from your neighbours’ property will move in an establish a new nest.

Provided they are not an invasive ant species (eg Argentine Ants) or an indoor species (White Footed Ants, Black House Ants) this shouldn’t cause major issues, but working with your neighbours to eradicate invasive species such as Argentine Ants will provide longer term control.

• Hawkeye Ant Spray SDS