Ants fascinate me , seemingly working in what I would address as a 'collective-intellect' .
Having a break the other day , I noticed a solitary black-ant roaming around on a slab, apparently without any purpose .
I squeezed a red-grape and placed on the slab beside the ant , and within under two-minutes approximately forty had appeared as if from nowhere . Minute by minute you could see the grape being devoured and shrinking , as if viewing some accelerated time-lapse imagery .
How do they do this ? What form of communication exists between creatures with brains so tiny ?
(Mind you , that's a question I've often considered when I see our neighbours)!!
I went to war with one nest last year after they built a mound right in the middle of my creeping thyme. Although I won, the brief existence of the mound was enough to kill off a circle of the thyme. It was only this spring it had grown back well enough that it was no longer noticeable.
I don't have an issue wit ants in general, as someone said in an earlier comment 'they're fascinating. However, I have nests in some of my containers. The problem with this is that; they build the nests around the roots of the plants. This means that the roots don't touch soil and therefore, can't get as much water or nutrients as the plants need. One pot of pansies went really straggly and at this time of year, when they should just be falling off but, the ones with the nest in it were ready for the compost bin weeks ago. I'm concerned that ants will nest under my alpine bed and cause problems for my plants. I can't water regularly which dissuades ants because, alpines don't like to be wet. The only other option is to put out ant bait & powder down and kill them off, which i really don't want to do if i can help it
We have a glass-topped well in our patio, and this summer there was a decent sized ants' nest clinging to the underside of the glass. Now that was fascinating!
I don't have an issue wit ants in general, as someone said in an earlier comment 'they're fascinating. However, I have nests in some of my containers. The problem with this is that; they build the nests around the roots of the plants. This means that the roots don't touch soil and therefore, can't get as much water or nutrients as the plants need. One pot of pansies went really straggly and at this time of year, when they should just be falling off but, the ones with the nest in it were ready for the compost bin weeks ago. I'm concerned that ants will nest under my alpine bed and cause problems for my plants. I can't water regularly which dissuades ants because, alpines don't like to be wet. The only other option is to put out ant bait & powder down and kill them off, which i really don't want to do if i can help it
There is a third option and that is to use "ant nematodes", which you could water onto your containers. The presence of this type of nematode won't be tolerated by the ants and they will move the entire nest elsewhere (so it would be necessary to treat all of your pots at the same time, or they will just move from one to another!)
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
Posts
I went to war with one nest last year after they built a mound right in the middle of my creeping thyme. Although I won, the brief existence of the mound was enough to kill off a circle of the thyme. It was only this spring it had grown back well enough that it was no longer noticeable.