On 3 May 2004 19:04:41 GMT, Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
Raymond RUSSELL wrote:


Much as I admire their amazing organizational talents,
ants are becoming more than serious competitors to us humans
- at least they are in our greenhouse and fruit garden.
Is the planet perhaps one huge ant-nest ?

Yes.

In the greenhouse they farm those little scabby things
on an indoor grapevine (had to rub them off between thumb and finger)
and greenfly on my (now crippled) tomato seedlings.
I`ve watched them doing it.
On apple trees I've watched the little perishers
collecting aphids on the outermost tips of the branches.

No, they don't farm them - they follow them. Ignore the ants as an
irrelevance - if the scale insects and aphids are there, the ants
will follow; and conversely. I use them as a mealybug indicator
in my conservatory :-)

Is there anything I can do (apart from the boiling oil) ?
Is there some odour they can't stand ?
Do they have no natural enemies - apart from me - and ant-eaters
which are a bit rare round here ?

Lots, but they have been around for quite a long time. They do very
little harm (and quite a lot of good) in the garden, and are best
ignored. Use a borax-based poison for nests that start raiding the
kitchen, digging up the patio or otherwise making an excessive
nuisance of themselves, and otherwise live with them.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

They do protect some aphids. I've seen (presumably) young pale aphids being
nurtured in a few nests I've dug up in winter. They overwinter them in the
nest and bring them out onto the young shoots in spring. The ants often
drive off potential predators, so allowing the aphids to increase. So it's
not exactly farming, more like shepherding.

--
Tim C.