Getting Antsy About This

Most of us here have ants and
there is probably widespread agreement that they are challenging adversaries. Some of them seem to be attracted to the sugar water that is in the hummingbird feeders as you can see in this photo and the feeder soon becomes overrun to the point where the humbirds just don't frequent the place anymore. How hard can it be to avoid this? They're ants for godsake.

So here they are trying to climb down the chain we use to hang the humbird feeder. The red cup-like device is full of water and intended to be a moat. Ants can't swim so therefore the path to the food is broken. The concept is simple and involves no chemicals. What could be easier?

Until it freezes at night. I spotted the little eskimos creeping across the circular ice field and down to the bonanza the next frozen morning. So out with the ice, refill the cup and wait for the next move like you do in chess.

Note the tiny raft of dead ants to the left side of the moat. The next development was that a mat of drowned ants forms and the living ones cross the moat to savage the sugar water again. This is not going to be as easy as I thought. Maybe I should take up chess.

Beginning to feel a little like the gopher-obsessed caddy in Caddy Shack I figure I will divert the deadly swarm BEFORE they reach the chain by parking a cap full of liquid Terro (poison they drink and carry back to the nest WHICH IS IN OUR ROOF !) and kill all the young. Here is what this clever idea looks like in action:
Note the pine needle connecting the chain to the CUP OF DEATH. This needle was soaked with Terro and intended to do just what you see . . . the little devils are going to drink their way to eternity!

Later I noticed a trail of ants moseying along our lawn border wood. They were coming from the house and the trail ended at a pine tree in our yard. So there is another colony in a different part of the house because right below where they enter there is a small accumulation of debris that appeared to be ground-up insulation. After a little checking it seems that they might be a velvet tree ant which either nests in the tree and vacations inside the walls of the house or vice-versa.

But once again the trail is the key so when I followed it to the tree it was a simple thing to encircle it with ant powder. Ortho, Terro and others all make it and the idea is that it clings to the ant and when they rub antenna to greet eachother and share directions to the food, it contaminates the rubee as well and the two spread the good news until everybody is feeling poorly. There was in fact a pile of bodies right where I had dusted before but the stuff must wear off and allowed more to come in.

Standard treatment is to sprinkle all around the perimeter of a home and if you find a trail to a tree, encircle the tree as well.