Ants in my pants

OK So I was out in the garden today and noticed a few Ants , Not sure were there coming from ?

Years ago you could get Ant powders and a liquid stuff to kill them , Anyone know any other ways to get rid of them ?

thanks for any help , Ian

 

If they are outside I ignore them and they tend to ignore me TBH.
You can still get ant killers if they are invading your house.

 

Our resident green woodpecker seems to keep our ant numbers well down. Not sure how many they eat at a sitting but it must be quite a spicy snack.

 

Hi

I leave them alone , amazing creatures .. and if they are coming into the house best get cleaning otherwise they will come in looking for a snack.

Spruce

 

I keep a spray bottle of water with a few drops of washing liquid handy. I also use this to spray on plants for tiny flying critters.

 

I use Nippon liquid if I have a problem. Sometimes they get in my planters or tubs and loosen the roots of the plants and even shrubs, which can kill them. So I put some drops on a flat stone and within a day the job is done. They are always red ants. Occasionally when I am weeding I find them crawling up my arm so we must have a lot here.

Otherwise I just leave them.

 

Leave them. Letting them have a little space to exist will not impact your quality of life … and will greatly improve theirs. If you happen to get them in a container plant and it starts to look unhappy, take it out of its pot, brush off any ants you can see, dunk the rootball in water so any hidden ones float out, repot in fresh compost and place in a new location. Ants can swim, so this should not harm them. Then tip the container of water gently onto its side so the water runs out … and they will float with it, find dry land and trot off.

 

My only issue with ants is when they build nests in my pots and kill the plants ( inadvertently I am sure) so I keep on top of the watering and put mesh over drainage holes. Live and let live I say. When they came into the house a few years ago I blocked off any gaps at ground level with baby powder seemed to do the trick.

 

The only problem I find is you need to get rid of the queen ant, if you don't the nest just starts up again.
The workers probably die.

 

The nest needs its Queen! Individual colonies can thrive for up to 15 yrs, though with a change of reigning monarch obviously.

I have “dealt with” ants nests in the past. I look back with shame and horror at my actions. They weren’t bothering me or causing any harm. Give me ants over squirrels/pigeons/seagulls any day of the week.

 

I always try to live with the wildlife around me. Sometimes we get ants coming indoors, attracted by the honeydew from the houseplants (greenfly and scale insects). So I spray the houseplants with neem oil, to discourage the honeydew producers, wash the flooring regularly to remove the sticky residue, and put a few drops of peppermint essential oil where the ants are coming indoors. The scent covers their scent “trails”, and they soon find a more appropriate food source.

 

I do too, I now let wasps nests remain in my roof, and swallows nest on my walls, and even the Martin is left to wander around and kill the neighbours chickens...

However I am at a real tipping point now regarding ants.

I have a garden about 600sqm, and it's a combo of lawn, meadow, fruit bushes, allotment.

I counted over 50 ant nests on the weekend. In the lawn, in the allotment, everywhere...
In the past I have tried those Nippon traps, which are supposed to eliminate the nest. I've never seen them work, but I used to forget to refill them. I now 3d printed a pile of them, however the liquid is quite expensive, and I don't know how effective.

More importantly, I don't know whether it's a good idea to have in the allotment, in and around growing plants.

The ants destroy my allotment, digging up seeds, digging up roots, farming aphids, destroying the planting areas, and biting enough that working there is not a pleasant experience.

My next course of action will have to be resorting to boiling water, which I really don't like to do, and it tends to only target a very small portion, and they relocate...

I live the in country, so they are not critical in the ecosystem, there's a lot of protected wildlife including ants nests all around me, and I will be fine with a couple, for every metre or so is just unbearable...

Any thoughts or other ideas would be gratefully received!

 

Nippon should work, but it sounds like your problem is a big wide-scale for that. Have the colonies been established long? Have these multiplied suddenly? It sounds like something about your conditions particularly suits them, so even if you got rid of one nest, you might find another sprung up nearby.

Tricky!

 

I spray them and use ant gel. They climb up the stone walls of my cottage in SW France, nest in the roof space and dead ants drop through tiny gaps in the beamed ceilings into the bath and the guest bedroom.