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Mud caked sapling trunk - ants?

cmarkrcmarkr Posts: 142
in Problem solving
Any thoughts? Adjacent trunks unaffected, seem to ants crawling up and down. In a young beech hedge

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  • Slow-wormSlow-worm Posts: 1,630
    No idea, but it's quite spectacular!
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Yes it looks as if the ants have built upwards to try to make cooler breeding chambers … probably during the hot weather. Did the sapling have a tree guard around it at one time! 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    Good observation, and good question Dove.

    My input.  Look where they are going. they may be herding aphids.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I’ve seen this happen before in hot spells where ants will build upwards around pots and the legs of garden seats. I’ve seen the ants carry their cocoons up and down into these ‘towers’ so have surmised that it’s to deal with the heat … unless someone knows differently. 

    However, I can’t find any reports of it here 
    https://www.antnest.co.uk/ant-nests/ 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    A response to rain?  I've seen this too, around a couple of potted trees and on the strawberries, some of which were almost buried!
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • Mrs-B3-Southampton,-HantsMrs-B3-Southampton,-Hants Posts: 732
    The buttress of one of my walls, behind the shrubs, had a 'skyscraper'.
    Southampton 
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    Never seen anything like that! Should it be removed?
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I suspect the winter weather will remove it. I tend to let nature get on with things as much as possible. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited September 2022
    Are ants sensitive to temperature?   (I know termites arrange air-conditioing.)

    Normally we have little brown ants in the garden usually under the terrace paving and  plantpots.  They swarm for half a day (each nest) but cause bo other problems.  They entered the house and sugar only once in 40 years.

    This year none.  I hadn't missed them but this thread caused me to look.

    When I lived at the Lancashire seaside we has red ants.   You could not sit on the grass or they got you, very painfully.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095

    Which leads me on to wasps; we get nests regularly.  This year I saw what looked like grey paper shreds on the lawn near a japanese Azalea.  When I bent down to inspect a wasp stung me.

    There was a nest In the azalea about 50cm above thr ground.  It was about football size and had been got at, probaby by a badger, and scattered about but still occupied.

    Usually the wasp nests are in the roof spaces or dead trees or underground.  Is an open air nest common?  Or is it another effect of the hot summer?
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
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