Ants
Ants are ubiquitous. This is one of the most interesting insects living next to humans in gardens and vegetable gardens. Until now, there is no unambiguous answer whether the proximity of ants to the place where plants are grown is good or bad. There are many positive and negative points associated with the existence of these insects in the ecological chains of the garden. Let us consider in more detail the issues related to the appearance of these insects in garden plots and try to figure out what and how to do if little workers become a big problem.
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Guest Information
In the vast majority, when they talk about ants in the garden, they mean one of its species - the black garden ant. This social insect is extremely widespread: its range stretched across Eurasia from Portugal and England to Central Siberia and northeast China.
black garden ant
The ant itself is an insect, 3-4 mm long. Individuals capable of producing offspring are somewhat larger - up to 6 mm, and the uterus can be 8 mm in length. They are usually painted black, but this depends on the color of the soil in which this or that family lives. It can be brown or grey. The body is covered with many hairs.
Inside the range, this species can exist in almost any environment: from deserts and forests to residential apartments and offices. The secret of such adaptability of the black garden ant is its fertility, the life span of the ant family and the peculiarities of its education.
A colony can number up to a million individuals. Its place of residence, an anthill, is a complex system of branched passages in the soil, penetrating up to 1 m deep. In rare cases, insects settle in hollows or rotten wood, as well as in moist soil and under stones.
The spread of garden ants is enormous. This is due to the fact that to create a new family, one fertilized female is enough, which independently creates her own anthill and no one helps her.
Flying female ant
Females after swarming, which occurs in July-August, scatter over great distances. And if everything goes well, in 2-3 months in the place that the new “queen” has chosen for herself, a colony of at least 10 thousand inhabitants will appear, and at the end of the year there will already be more than 100 thousand.
Black garden ant queen
With such "strategic" means of struggle, ants can be a serious problem not only for amateur, but also for professional agriculture.
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Ants in any ecosystem of the insect world are at the top of its food chain. This is not surprising, because they have practically no natural enemies. Undoubtedly, there are all kinds of flies that parasitize on them, there are even ticks that live at their expense, etc. However, these factors are not able to have a noticeable impact on the population of not only a species, but even an individual family.
These insects are polyphagous predators. And only the inability to digest cellulose prevents them from becoming omnivores. Eating insects in the garden, and not at all interested in plants, ants bring great benefits to gardeners, gardeners and flower growers. And anthills located almost always in the ground have an additional effect on the aeration of the soil on the site.
Ants communicate
But all this is good when there are few ants. As soon as there are more than a certain number of them (and this happens to all families sooner or later), the search for additional food begins in the colony, and one increase in its quantity is not enough. Even ants need variety.
Hence, as soon as the ants find an aphid, they take it under their protection. There is an erroneous opinion that these insects are able to “breed” aphids and carry their larvae or eggs along with their own, in order to organize a colony in a new place and immediately have a kind of “farm” of aphids next to them. Naturally, this is not so: the ants simply find aphids sitting on plants and begin to scare away all of its natural enemies.
Ants and aphids
In the garden or in the garden, the aphid has many enemies, the most important of which is the ladybug. One instance of a bright red bug only 6-8 mm long is capable of destroying more than a hundred aphids within a day.
ladybug
Ladybugs are not interesting for ants from the point of view of food, since they are poisonous. And formic acid does not work on ladybugs. The only way the ants can drive away the pesky beetles is to wrap their bodies around them and throw them off the plant. What, in fact, they constantly do ants, "herding" aphids.
And it should be noted that they do this very successfully; ladybugs are forced to leave places where aphids are guarded by ants, or move on to other small insects.
Ants attack ladybug
Therefore, if there is a danger that ants will come to your site, or if this has already happened, certain measures should be taken. Let's consider them in more detail.
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Humane methods of struggle
Ants in the garden
Any garden or garden is a small ecological system that is in balance. All living beings of this system, both plants and animals, are, as it were, a single organism, each member of which is involved in many interconnected processes. And if some component is completely removed from this chain, then the ecological balance will be disturbed.
There are several methods that can not destroy the ants, but only scare them away from useful crops or “re-profil” orderlies to other food sources.
Moving an anthill to a new location
Anthill in the garden
One of the easiest methods. It consists in digging out the habitat of ants with a shovel. The depth of occurrence of small anthills is from 20 to 30 cm. Having dug up the earth within a radius of 30 cm from the entrance to the anthill to a depth of 20-30 cm and putting it in a bucket, it is simply carried to the border of the site, or beyond it.
Ants will settle down perfectly in a new place, even if their queen dies. Quite quickly, a new uterus will appear in the anthill, and its life will continue in the usual way.
- simplicity and speed of solution
- does not require the use of any complex tools
- the ant colony is recovering quickly
- the method is not applicable to large anthills; it is not always rational to take out about half a cubic meter of soil from the site, in addition, if the uterus remains in the old place, the problem will not go away
anthill shading
Like all insects, ants love warmth. Consequently, garden ants arrange their home in such a way that during the day they are maximally heated by the warmth of the sun's rays. The main exit from the anthill is always located in a sunny area.
Exit from the anthill
If you shade an area about a meter in diameter from this exit, sooner or later, the ants will leave this place in search of a new, warmer one.
- ease of solution
- insufficient reliability; results are not always guaranteed
- the process can be quite long
- similar to the previous method, not applicable for large anthills
Ant repellent
Ant repellents
The management of both the life of an individual ant and the entire colony is carried out with the help of smells. It is with the help of smell that ants communicate with each other, learn about new food sources, find their way home, differentiate “their” and “alien” ants, and so on.
Use of plant repellers
Plants from ants
These may be:
Whole or crushed stems and leaves of these plants are laid out around the entrance to the anthill or on ant routes. These plants are tied around the stems of crops attacked by aphids. In the case of preventive measures, similar plants with the most pronounced odor are planted around the protected crops in spring.
Marigolds, mint or valerian are planted between the beds or next to the trees. That will not only scare away the ants, but also provide the owner with a set of medicinal herbs.
Plants from ants
Sometimes it is recommended to rub the trunks of protected plants garlic. In some cases, the trunks of plants, or even the earth, are sprayed with decoctions from the listed repellers.
- environmental friendliness of the method
- high efficiency products with a pungent odor
- over time, ants can get used to repellers
- in the case of planting plants, the application of the method can be significantly extended in time
The use of special deterrents
There are several dozen products whose smell makes ants uncomfortable. They come from different origins, however, they are relatively easy to obtain or prepare. These funds include:
- charcoal ash
- rock salt
- tobacco dust or ash
- soot
- Red pepper
- cinnamon
- bone flour
- lime
- other products with similar properties
Application methods are very simple - funds, as in the previous method, are laid out in places of accumulation ants and their paths.
Even cooking waste is often used. For instance, Ants do not tolerate the smell of smoked fish. It is enough to put the head of a smoked herring near the entrance to the anthill, and they can leave their "familiar" place.
You can put a bunch of potato peels or tops on top of the anthill tomatoes. The smell of nightshade crops is also poorly tolerated by ants.
Universal ash
In some cases, it is recommended to water the anthill and ant routes with cattle or even human urine. This is not a very popular method, since urine inhibits the growth of the root system of many plants, in addition, the smell of this liquid is also unpleasant for people.
The use of the following method has proven itself well: the entrance to the anthill is covered with a sheet of thick cardboard measuring 30x30 cm, on top of which a solution of soot in water is applied. The smell of soot for ants is also extremely unpleasant.
Sheepskin strips about 1 cm thick can be used to protect plants. Plant shoots are tied with these strips at a height of about 10-15 cm from the ground with wool outward. Wool is wetted with carbolic acid. The smell of the acid will keep the ants away from the plants.
- relative simplicity and efficiency
- large selection of funds
- funds have a negative impact on the flora and people; for example, the use of salt leads to a decrease in soil fertility, and soot is a strong carcinogen
- methods may not be effective in wet summer conditions
Methods that block the path of ants
These can be various barriers and barriers made using water, oil, various Velcro, gels and similar devices.
For example, the use of foil skirts on the trunks of plants that need to be protected. The skirt is directed with a bell down and the ants will not be able to climb over the sharp edge. You can also use skirts made of plastic or agrofibre.
Skirt on a tree trunk
An effective way has proven to be the use of car tires cut in half, into which water is poured. Tires are put on the trunks of young trees and dug into the ground. Ants are not able to overcome the water barrier.
Treating the lower part of the trees with hemp oil or lupine juice will also effectively help stop the ants. The combination of a relatively viscous liquid and an unpleasant odor for ants will stop any attempts by insects to climb up the trunk.
- a wide range of funds
- relatively high efficiency
- complexity in the technical implementation of some methods
Aphid control
Logically, this is the easiest way. After all, after all, the goal is not the destruction of ants, but the destruction of aphids. To ensure maximum environmental safety, it is best to use folk methods consisting in spraying affected plants with special solutions.
Spraying plants
Recipes for solutions can be as follows:
- 200 g of solid (or 100 g of liquid) soap diluted in 10 liters of water
- 300 g of ash and 50 g of soap diluted in 10 liters of water
- 200 g of chopped garlic insist in 5 liters of water for 4 days
- 100 g of dried chamomile flowers insist in 1 liter of water for 12 hours; add 3 l of water and 20 g of liquid soap
The resulting formulations should be sprayed on the affected areas of plants once a day for a week. For prevention purposes, it is possible to spray healthy plants during budding, flowering and 1-2 weeks before harvesting.
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Ant extermination
If methods to repel ants have proven ineffective, there is only one way to save the garden from their destructive activities - to try to destroy them. Considering the peculiarities of the life of ants, both in physiological and social terms, this is a very difficult task. However, mankind has been successfully using methods of war against insects for more than one hundred years.
Use of poisonous baits
The choice of means is quite diverse and they are quite effective. The main component of such baits are substances that are deadly for ants, for example, borax, boric acid or yeast.
Lure components
Eating such baits, the ants will die after a while. And bringing them to the anthill, they will ensure the spread of poison throughout the colony.
The bait recipes are as follows:
- 20 ml of hot water, 15 g of sugar, 3-4 g of borax mix and cool, add 5 ml of honey; the bait lies near the anthill
- 8 parts sugar, 2 parts honey, 9 parts water, 1 part borax; everything is thoroughly mixed and laid out in small containers near the entrance to anthills and on ant trails
- 20 g minced meat and 5 g borax
- a tablespoon of yeast is mixed with water to a state of slurry, a teaspoon of jam is added to the resulting mixture; the resulting composition is applied to a sheet of cardboard and installed in places where ants accumulate
Lures ready to lay
Baits are updated at intervals of 4-5 days.
- ease of implementation
- effective result
- long lead time
Destruction of anthills
The essence of the method is simple: the destruction of ants and their homes. The main thing is not only to destroy the anthill, but also to destroy the queen, larvae, eggs and the maximum number of working individuals.
Broken chamber with eggs
This is achieved in a variety of ways:
- pouring anthills with some active or poisonous liquid: boiling water, kerosene or infusion of nightshade tops
- stir up the anthill and cover it with hot ash or coals
- dig up an anthill, fill it with kerosene and set it on fire
- etc
- speed and efficiency
- possible soil contamination
- low efficiency for large anthills
Use of chemicals
Ant Control Chemicals
This method is a last resort, and is used when other means have been ineffective, and the condition of the site is very bad. Ants are highly resistant to insecticides, so you will have to use the most powerful means, such as Muracid or Thunder.
- the fastest way with guaranteed results
- many other insects are destroyed;
- soil pollution with toxic substances;
- possible damage to plants
Biological method of struggle
Very simple from the point of view of the idea, but rather complicated in terms of implementation. However, it is increasingly used to effectively solve the "ant" problem.
The only enemy that can effectively cope with this task are ants of another species, for example, red forest ants. They are perfectly capable of living in garden conditions and can replace their garden predecessors as fighters against all kinds of garden pests.
red forest ant
In order to bring forest ants to the site, you need to use a large bucket with a tight lid. There is a small anthill in the forest, it is torn with a shovel to the chamber where the larvae are stored, placed in a bucket and brought to the garden plot, where it simply gets enough sleep in a sunny place.
Then everything will happen by itself. Forest red ants will destroy not only garden ants, but also the aphids that they grow.
- guaranteed result
- replacing ants in the garden with ones that do not protect aphids
- difficulty in implementation
- forest anthills are harmed, as forces are spent on their restoration
- survival rate is low; in 80% of cases, the brought anthill will not survive the winter
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Conclusion
Ant in search
Ants on the site are a classic case of the duality of the same phenomenon. It is difficult to say unequivocally whether their appearance is good or not. On the one side, they fight a lot of garden pests, on the other hand, they breed pests themselves. And when the problems from their presence become more than good, you have to take measures to remove insects from the site. This is a rather serious problem that requires a balanced solution, and it is definitely not worth rushing to accept it.
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