CrabAppleLane Ants - January 4, 2009
My neighbor, Timmy, and I were wrestling one day when I was a kid. He got the advantage and held me down in a red ant pile. It wasn't as big as this one and he didn't do that on purpose. I couldn't get up and they were biting me pretty good. It wasn't until he got bit that he let me up. I did a dance because there were ants in my pants. Red ant piles don't get this big in the city usually because people do something about them. Out here at CrabAppleLane, where parts of the yard can go untended for a few weeks, they are more like castles than piles.
I've never seen anything like this in MN. I have seen mounds of woodticks, but not this big. All I can say is ewww.
Joan -- You're on a roll, kiddo. Keep it up.
I never knew woodticks were found in colonies. I say ewww to the woodticks and ewwwww to the fireants.
I hate red ants! There is a story about me sitting in a pile when I was about 2 years old. I got eaten up but the worst part was the nightmares it gave me. Janine says she had to pretend to wipe the ants off me when I would wake up screaming about it. Neither Samuel nor Luke has gotten into ants yet. Joey is vigilant about killing piles in our yard so we don't have those incidents.
Yes, Aunt Ginny, I am on a roll. You told me you wanted to see me here more often. Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for! :o)
I agree with Joan. EWWWW. And, yes Aunt Ginnie, woodticks too! Ewww. But still, cool photo!
Two different ways to eradicate them - boiling water and cornmeal. Ants are attracted to cornmeal which is taken back to the pile. They eat it, can't digest it, and then die because it expands in their stomachs.
When I had company coming for Thanksgiving, I poured boiling water on the piles that anyone (little people mainly) would likely walk into accidentally. That worked.
I was told by the dept of agriculture many years ago that ants are beneficial in that they eat the pesty insects like termites and aphids. The nice man who took the time to talk to me told me he had just come from a seminar on the topic. I called the dept of agriculure because I had some in my garden that I wanted to get rid of without hurting my plants. After talking to him, I decided to let them be and chose moments when they weren't out to pick vegetables. I had a boon that year of broccoli and brussel sprouts in the fall, and in the spring - tomatoes, bell peppers and basil.
I don't do much at all with them, Janine. If they're somewhere I don't want them to be, I just hose them every day until they decide to move on. If they're in the tractor path, too bad for them. I don't use any chemicals.
I use chemicals. I use the worst chemicals there are. The meanest and most ferocious and most expensive chemicals I can find. And still, I notice that once I've eliminated a gigantic mound, the next day I see a smaller mound twelve inches away: the beginnings of the survivors' new home. I do understand there is no controlling them, but I will continue to try.