Tim Tyler wrote:

Nick Maclaren wrote:

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.

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15221511

...has Lasius niger excluding predators from aphid
colonies:

``Large predators were excluded by both ant species from the
aphid colonies, while they were abundant in ant-excluded colonies.''

and better still,

``L. niger workers often carried living aphids away from the attended
colonies, whereas P pungens removed no aphids...''

I didn't know they did that, but surely that counts as farming?

Peter