In article ,
Tim Tyler writes:
| Sacha wrote:
| "len garden" wrote:
|
| no is the answer they can cause all sort of problems and bring their
| symbiotic bugs in as well.
|
| What symbiotic bugs would those be? [...]
|
| Sap suckers:
|
| ``Some ant species, such as the common Black garden ants
| (Lasius niger) found in the UK, farm aphids. They have
| aphid livestock which they transport between plants and
| protect from enemies in return for a sugary substance
| called honeydew, excreted from the aphids as they suck
| on plant sap.''

All of the references I have seen, and my observation over many
years, indicate that is at best an urban myth. More bluntly, it
is just plain wrong. I don't know whether there are any 'farming'
ant species in the UK - most references are evasive on that - but
Lasius niger is not one of them.

It does do some desultory herding, but that is about all. I have
seen one decent reference that indicates that it may assist aphids,
but the research had a fair number of possible flaws, and it was
done so long ago that I couldn't check with the author.

It is vanishingly unlikely that Lasius niger will import aphids
onto plants in posts that they are nesting in.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.