Nature's clean up crew
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Lasius niger or the common black ant is one of nature's most abundant clean up crews. Who hasn't come across an ant hill or nest in their yard at some point. Each nest holding usually 3000 to 4,000 workers. The first thing most people do when they discover ants is to run to the store to purchase poisons to kill the nest. Of course for the avid gardener or the lawn enthusiast they can be quite a problem.
Ants can also be beneficial. They find and drag back to the nest the dead (and some not so dead) bugs that they discover on our property. This ant spent two hours dragging this dead june bug across my driveway to the lawn.
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This ant found a dead moth on a different section of driveway and with the help of some of its fellows soon had carried it off. The ant hill itself is a massive series of tunnels that aerate the soil and resolve the compaction of the ground. Thus they do provide benefits to mother earth. Unless the hill threatens to become very tall I don't do much about the ones in the lawn. I draw the line when they enter the house.
Yep, I just tell 'em... stay outside and don't get vacuumed up...
Living in the country gives a person a whole new appreciation of 'bug problem'...
I'm going to guess you go through seasons of bugs? My least favorites are earwigs, and box elder bugs... I have to spray for box elders, they literally become a second skin for trees and old wood... yuck...
Most of the time Max will hunt them down and eat them. Wasps are always a problem here.
Nature's little vacuum, is he?
Not ever having owned or even spent much time with a dog before, I'm always surprised by what a dog sees as edible... yuck... although I haven't really noticed bugs being that high on Karl's menu, but I'm not sure about the cat's selection... She does delight in leaving the entrails of her last kill on my doormat... of course I've also received half mice, up to the whole carcass as well... and even have a sparrow once... but, now the sparrows are dive bombing the cat all the time...
til next time
THey are amazingly strong little pests. I have to work on getting rid of them this summer, they are busy dismantling my house, one grain of sand at a time
If you have access to the laundry whitener borax you can kill them all. Use 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 1/2 tablespoons of Borax and 1 1/2 cups of warm water. Mix these ingredients together until they are combined and the Borax is dissolved. I put the mix into an old margarine container so there is enough to cover the bottom. Poke holes in the sides big enough for the ants to get in put on the cover and place container near the nest. The will feed on it and take it back to the queen. The whole nest is usually gone within 4 days. The mix is not poisonous to larger animals like birds or cats and dogs.
Thanks for that, I've heard good things about the effectiveness of borax and sugar but no-one has given me the recipe before. I am definitely going to try it, my ant problem is large