Ants in your plants?

[RKatzin]

I have been working closely with the trees, repotting ect, couple of weeks now, every day eyes on hands on.
Maples are just leafing out now and now is when the aphids strike. You can't see the little buggers until you have a mass infestation, but, you can see the ants that are harvesting the honeydew the aphids produce. You can head off the invasion at this point with a couple of drops of dish soap in a qt. spray bottle. Follow them ants around the tree and they will show you where the nest areas are. Spray up into the underside of the leaves and into the crotches of the upper twigs and stems. I usually only have to do this once a season, but I keep that bottle handy all summer.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I wrapped some trunks with flypaper (after first doing a layer of easy removable painters tape). The stuff that people hang from their ceiling, yeah.
Ants get stuck and die there, but not before calling their friends. It's a massacre.
However, 2 months into spring..
10m high cherry tree: aphid free.
5m high plum tree: aphid free.
Bonsai: aphid free.

Sure, a few winged specimens made it up the trees. But those arent protected by the ants anymore, so the ladybugs and other predators have an easy prey.

My dad laughed at me for trying this last year, saying I'm an idiot. A few weeks back he called me to come repeat the trick for him because he kind of liked the result.

 

[cockroach]

If I fought ants here, I would spend my whole day doing it. Struggle to keep them out of the house.
I occasionally throw down ant pellets and liquids in the hope it slows their roll for a while.

 

[RKatzin]

In my case, the ants are not problematic. They are just usually the first indicator that there's something going on in the trees. Cure that something and the ants go away.

 

[GGB]

I love ants, they corral all the aphids into one spot and then signal to you ther's a problem. Plus if they frequent your bonsai soil you know your substrate is too wet. Also they remind me of humans the way the live and work. My dudes for sure

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I love ants

We have Argentine ants down here and they are nothing to joke about. In the span of a single night they can forage and swarm and kill small animals. If I spot them in the house I can trap them, but often we will go from "no ants for several years" to "ant finds single entrance into home and tells 1,000,000,000,000 friends" in one night. We are keeping geckos in a small enclosure on the second floor of our house. Apparently Argentine ants can smell crickets and go crazy for them (who knew?). About a month ago I fed the geckos before bed, went to sleep, and got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and found the gecko enclosure SWARMING with ants. Had to scramble to save the geckos, ran everything else outside with ants crawling all over my arms, and went back upstairs to kill truly billions of ants. Followed their trail back to a single crack along a beam in the ceiling.

 

[my nellie]

I don't even want to think about this @Bonsai Nut
Dreadful

I have problem with a kind of tiny ants. Every Spring they return invading all my pots, window boxes, all over the plants.
They might be sugar ants... I don't know.
I fight them with chemical control of course. No half measures.

 

[GGB]

Daaaamnnn! nah

 

[AlainK]

We have Argentine ants down here and they are nothing to joke about. In the span of a single night they can forage and swarm and kill small animals.

Wow! Now I understand why this billion-dollar wall Trump vowed to build is indispensable!

<LOL>

Sorry, bad joke, too sarcastic, we do have similar problems here too: after other pets imported from the far-esat like the asian hornet, the "tiger mosquito" is invading France!

I apologise to those who fell asleep and woke up with all their toes eaten out by alien ants.

Joking apart, this is a serious problem that will take more reflexion, and international agreements - to be respected when signed, if possible- than building an "Argentine ants proof fence" (reference: the "Rabbit-proof fence").

 

[Dan92119]

Aspartame seems to work for me. (Yes the sweetener)

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Quotable quote about Argentine ants:

Due to their nesting behavior and presence of numerous queens in each colony, it is generally impractical to spray Argentine ants with pesticides or to use boiling water as with mound building ants. Spraying with pesticides has occasionally stimulated increased egg-laying by the queens, compounding the problem.

 

[ihaveaspaceship]

but, you can see the ants that are harvesting the honeydew the aphids produce.

Like this?


LETS ZOOM IN!



I was just Trying to take a picture of some baby coast live oak foliage, and bam...I sprayed them all off with a hose but I fear they will be back. The trees are in nursery soil still, crawling with problems it seems.
Was the only part infested thankfully.

 

[cockroach]

Quotable quote about Argentine ants:

Due to their nesting behavior and presence of numerous queens in each colony, it is generally impractical to spray Argentine ants with pesticides or to use boiling water as with mound building ants. Spraying with pesticides has occasionally stimulated increased egg-laying by the queens, compounding the problem.

That's enough to make you crap yourself.

Found this on a paper written in 2006 about slowing expansion only.
"Slight alterations in the "recognition" chemicals on the exoskeletons of these closely related pests, these scientists say, could transform "kissing cousins" into mortal enemies, triggering deadly in-fighting within their normally peaceful super colonies, which have numerous queens and can stretch hundreds of miles. One colony of Argentine ants is believed to extend almost the complete length of California, stretching from San Diego to Ukiah, 100 miles north of San Francisco. Their sheer numbers, cooperative behavior and lack of natural predators in the United States make these small, slender ants - only about 1/8 of an inch long - difficult to eradicate,"
Ant Expansion Control Article

That is horrifying.