Yes, Tempo kills ants on contact and through ingestion. Its active ingredient, beta-cyfluthrin at 11.8%, delivers quick knockdown and works against more than 100 pest species, with ants specifically listed on the label. But there’s an important catch: Tempo kills individual ants effectively while doing little to eliminate the colony that produces them.
How Tempo Kills Ants
Beta-cyfluthrin, the active ingredient in Tempo SC Ultra, attacks an ant’s nervous system both through direct contact and as a stomach poison if ingested. It forces the muscles into constant spasms, eventually paralyzing the ant or preventing it from feeding until it starves. This happens relatively quickly compared to slower-acting products like baits.
The product leaves a residual layer on treated surfaces that continues killing ants that walk across it. Indoors, this residual lasts approximately 90 days. Outdoors, where rain, UV light, and temperature swings break down the chemical faster, the residual drops to about 30 days. You can reapply on those same schedules: every 90 days indoors, every 30 days outdoors.
Which Ant Species It Works On
Tempo SC Ultra lists ants broadly on its label, and beta-cyfluthrin as a chemical class has been registered in products targeting specific species including carpenter ants and fire ants. Bayer (now BioAdvanced) has sold dedicated carpenter ant and fire ant products built around the same active ingredient. So whether you’re dealing with pavement ants trailing across your kitchen floor or carpenter ants nesting in damp wood, the chemical itself is effective at killing the ants it contacts.
Why It Won’t Solve a Colony Problem
This is the most important thing to understand about using Tempo for ants. Beta-cyfluthrin is a pyrethroid, and pyrethroids are repellent insecticides. They kill foraging ants quickly, but they also create a chemical barrier that surviving ants detect and avoid. The University of California’s Integrated Pest Management program specifically warns against using cyfluthrin-based products for ant control, noting that they “rapidly kill foragers and don’t control the colony.”
An ant colony can contain thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals, with one or more queens continuously producing new workers. Killing the ants you can see, the foragers, barely dents the population. Worse, the repellent effect can cause the colony to split or simply reroute its trails to avoid treated areas, making the problem harder to solve. You might notice fewer ants along your original treatment line while a new trail appears a few feet away.
For colony elimination, pest professionals typically recommend non-repellent products. These are insecticides that ants can’t detect, so they walk through the treated zone, pick up the chemical on their bodies, and carry it back to the nest where it spreads to other ants through normal contact. Ant baits work on a similar principle: foragers carry poisoned food back to the colony, eventually reaching the queen.
When Tempo Makes Sense for Ants
Tempo works well as a perimeter barrier to keep ants from entering a structure. Spraying along foundation walls, around window frames, and in cracks and crevices creates a kill zone that stops foragers before they get inside. It’s a defensive tool, not an offensive one. If your goal is to stop ants from crossing a specific threshold, Tempo does that job reliably for weeks at a time.
It also makes sense for quick knockdown when you need immediate results, like clearing a heavy trail while you set up a longer-term baiting strategy. Many pest control approaches combine a repellent barrier on the exterior of the home with non-repellent treatments or baits closer to the nest.
Safety During and After Application
Tempo SC Ultra carries a “Caution” signal word, the lowest toxicity category for pesticides. It can cause harm if swallowed, inhaled, or absorbed through skin, and it causes moderate eye irritation. During application, you should wear safety glasses and avoid breathing the spray mist.
People and pets can return to treated areas once the spray has fully dried, which typically takes 30 minutes to a couple of hours depending on ventilation and humidity. Remove pets from the area during application. If you have fish tanks indoors, cover them tightly and turn off aerators before spraying, as beta-cyfluthrin is extremely toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates. Outdoors, keep children and pets off treated lawns until the surface has dried completely.