Pharoah ants

[MitchellFromCanada]

Hi everyone!
So my building has had a problem with some pharoah ants and I’ve been dealing with them since september. Thought i had them under control as I had only ever caught them around the kitchen and have baited and got rid of most of them. I have two indoor trees in my room and last week I found some near the trees, yesterday exterminators came and placed baiting gels around. Does that mean I shouldn’t kill any ants I find near my bonsai so they take poison back to the nest? Will they take the poison back to the nest or will they burrow into my soils and try to make a new home in there. Also, how do they not die when i water the trees if they are in there? I saw online they recommend sticky paper around the whole exterior of the pot, but with bonsai wont they still be able to climb through the bottom? Pharoah ants are the tiny ones.

 

[sorce]

Let my people go.

I wouldn't worry about it much.

Sorce

 

[ShadyStump]

The baits are supposed to work on the whole nest. That's the point of them in stead of just spraying.

If they can make a nest in your tree, your pot is WAY too big.
If they were all leaf cutter ants then you might worry.

 

[MitchellFromCanada]

Ok thanks a lot for the reassurance guys, I will wait and hope for the best. Too busy to be fighting ants right now anyways ! Haha I am new to bonsai though and the one trees pot looks a little big, the other trees pot looks too small. Here is a picture, the FT also just had aphids, i was advised to use dish soap and water which seemed like a bad idea and made the leaves go black and I had to pick a bunch of them off. But the aphids are gone for now at least. Cheers

 

[ShadyStump]

Nah, you'd need a pot big enough for a full grown tree to house an ant nest on its own.

Your trees will grow into those pots pretty quickly. They'll grow even faster if you plant them in the ground, but might not be possible for these. I can't tell what the are, but I'm hoping they're tropical if you're keeping them inside.

 

[MitchellFromCanada]

@ShadyStump cool! Thanks, the left one is a fukien tea and the right is a calliandra shultzei (powderpuff) I believe, yeah they’re tropical so I can put them out on the balcony in the summer for some good growth hopefully, sadly I have no ground available for a few years. I have a few baby maples and a nursery stock hinoki cypress on the balcony with some woodchips around the pots for the winter. Looking forward to pruning/styling the hinoki in the spring, i just wired the branches down to let some light into the interior.

 

[rockm]

Hi everyone!
So my building has had a problem with some pharoah ants and I’ve been dealing with them since september. Thought i had them under control as I had only ever caught them around the kitchen and have baited and got rid of most of them. I have two indoor trees in my room and last week I found some near the trees, yesterday exterminators came and placed baiting gels around. Does that mean I shouldn’t kill any ants I find near my bonsai so they take poison back to the nest? Will they take the poison back to the nest or will they burrow into my soils and try to make a new home in there. Also, how do they not die when i water the trees if they are in there? I saw online they recommend sticky paper around the whole exterior of the pot, but with bonsai wont they still be able to climb through the bottom? Pharoah ants are the tiny ones.

Wouldn't worry about it, really.

FWIW, ants don't die when you submerge the tree because they have had billions of years of evolution adapting to living in the ground. The ground floods all the time. If they couldn't deal with that, they wouldn't be around...

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Ants usually do not bother the bonsai, except some ants will "farm" aphids. They will tend to the aphids like cattle. They "milk the aphids" for the honeydew the aphids excrete. Baits are best. Baits have very targeted action.

Aphids can be knocked off by a spray of plain water. Just a drop, less than 0.2 ml of soap per gallon (4 liters) is enough soap to wash the aphids off. Repeat spraying every green plant in the apartment every 3 to 5 days until you see no more aphids for 2 weeks. If you have a collection of plants, treat them all, even if you only see a problem on one plant. Because aphids are famous for "hiding out". Likely most of your plants have some aphids.

Your winter set up for the Hinoki should work fine.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Safer's Insecticidal soap is a potassium salt of a fatty acid. Follow directions on the bottle. It works well for aphids. Not so great with mealybugs, but great on aphids.