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We have legions of small, black, highly aggressive, carnivorous ants up at our dark sky site. They are just big enough to break your skin when they latch on. If you stand still, they will swarm towards you.... little buggers.
When camping up there a year ago, I used the best part of a large can of fast knockdown fly spray over the space of an hour trying to discourage them from invading our space. It didn't work at all. What it did do is trigger an even more hostile response from the larger colony. Basically the nests from as far as 20m away emptied out in an attempt to repel the invaders. The ground was literally covered like an ant battleground the which you might see in a Tolkien movie.
I have since found a much easier and less toxic way to discourage them.
Simply sweep the ground with the broom strokes radiating away from you.
This disrupts the pheromone markers they lay down. Without their scent on the ground, they no longer seem to consider it to be their territory and (mostly) stay away. Even the ants in the holes in that area prefer to either stay underground or surface outside the perimeter.
Incidentally, oil seems to be just as effective, if not more so than fly spray. It gets in their spiracles and suffocates them. CRC is better than Mortien.
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