Ants

stevet1

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Thought I'd try following on from the thrilling 'Slugs' thread...
First off - I'm a hippy vegetarian, I won't kill owt generally.
So we had a small ant colony in one corner of the garden. Ants are really cool I told my missus, who looked cynical. They've as much right to live in the garden as I do to enjoy sitting in it, so I left them and occasionally marvelled at them going about their business. One ant colony has as many neural connections as a human you know.
fast forward a couple of months, its been raining a lot, and I've been busy. hence the lawn hasn't been mowed (I dislike neatly trimmed lawns anyway) but Sunday I decide to mow it before it gets too unmanageable and the weather turns too wet to deal with it. I must've mowed through about 3 or 4 anthills! They've spread all over the place! I really think they're taking liberties, I gave them a safe place to live and they want the whole garden the little blighters. Anyway if my missus sees this she'll blame me for not showing the original colony the door :roll:
I'm scared they'll want the house next and I'm not sure they'll even leave me a corner of the garden :shock:
Sooo... as stated above I'm restistant to poisoning them or boiling them or anything else BUT I wouldn't mind trying to move them on. My first line of attack was to stomp heavily - millions of the buggers scurried out to see what was up.
Anyone any better ideas? I'm aware I'm going to get lots of ridicule...
 
I think it might me just the weather or something.... We have about 12 red ant nests in the lawn at the moment and next door has the same problem?? :shock:
 
hmm maybe, we have mixtures of red and black - my missus said she didn't mind the black ones but the reds ones bite. I told her not to be racist, they all bite.
 
Nope only the red ones do, same as a nettle. The least chemical way of dealing with them is a kettle of boiling water on the entrance holes..

Unless the black ones are woodland ants in which case I think they bite aswell...
 
They don't all bite. Some make do by spraying formic acid at the attacker. Boiling water will only get the ones you can see. You need to use the poison that they think is food. They take it back to the nest, feed it to the queen and...no more colony. Mow your lawn more often and they would have decided the area was unsuitable.
 
Iwasgoodonce":22oomypt said:
Mow your lawn more often and they would have decided the area was unsuitable.

Don't tell the missus that as well! :shock:
Thanks for the sensible advice so far fellas. Looks like the mower will be seeing more use than its use to.
 
Got a nest in the server room at work.....I just let them hang out there as they don't bother with the computers and stuff :cool:
 
I decided to dig up a very old tree stump in my garden the other week. The stump was a rotten mess and was always swarming with ants. When I removed the stump there was a little hole where the ants were going and I shoved my spade in which then opened up a 4 foot deep and 3 foot wide spongy ants nest filled with millions of the bastards and their young (2 bucket loads of the white eggy things).

Not being a Hippy Veggie I liberally covered with petrol, wd40, white spirts and oil and lit them - that got rid of most, I then dug deep into the nest and turned the hose on and filled the hole with water which then drowned the rest. Job done, been ant free for weeks
 

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