Comments on: Invasion of the Exponential Ants

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:43:18 +0000

Ok,to respond to Robin..ants are facinating to watch, right? They certainly are. OUTSIDE!!! Obviously you have not been one of the poor unfortuante souls that has been forced to co-habitate with the black beady little beasts. I am sure you have never had the pleasure of having to share your breakfast cereal with them. That would be Sugar Smacks to be exact. They don’t need an invitation mind you, they meerly wait inside the box until you open it and pour the cereal in your bowl. That’s when the real party starts!! Ants also love to help you with your dishes. They form a nice long trail all the way up to your kitchen sink and proceed to clean off all the little crumbs of food left on all the forks and bowls. Now this is a nice gesture because after all, we don’t want all of that extra food mucking up our dishwashers. One ant, two, heck, even 20 ants would be nice to watch but until you experience a true army invasion complete with camos and hard hats, you have no clue!!

By: allen

allen — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 22:49:26 +0000

THEY ARE BACK AGAIN. I SUGGEST A VERY STRONG POISON BARRIER AROUND THE HOUSE. TWENTY FOUR INCHES UP AND TWENTY FOUR INCHES OUT. THIS HAS A TENDENCY TO KILL ANYTHING CRAWLING INTO THE HOUSE. UNFORTUNATELY, RAIN WEAKENS THE BARRIER AND HAS TO BE APPLIED TWICE A YEAR. IT IS CHEAPER AND MORE EFFECTIE THAN ANY ONCE A YEAR PEST CONTROL, WHICH DON’T WORK. CARPENTAR ANTS CAN BE AS DESTRUCTIVE AS TERMITES. (CARPENTAR). DON’T FORGET THERESHOLDS AND GARAGE DOOR OPENING.

ALLEN

By: Terry

Terry — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:57:50 +0000

Robin,

Thanks for reading the post. You may be right about these not being carpenter ants. Our receptionist here at the LJ, Jane McGarry, says that carpenter ants have wings, which mine did not have. But mine certainly work like carpenters. There are a bunch of them hollowing out a pine tree about 70-80 feet away from my backyard deck. They are picking bits of the tree up from the inside and dropping the bits onto the ground, forming a mound of sawdust-like material. I hope they are not inside my house somewhere doing the same.

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 02:12:19 +0000

While ants are annoying, most really are harmless. In fact, ants are the cleanest creatures on the whole planet. They spend hours each day cleaning themselves, and their antennae are always immaculate. I suggest to anyone doubting me to check out the following website: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mantsdisease.html

By: Jenny Hansell

Jenny Hansell — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:09:17 +0000

Long live the ants! They provided much merriment in our house last night - my 2 girls, ages 4 and 7, have been shrieking “ANT!!! KILL THE ANT!!!” every time they see one, but last night they felt a little braver and started playing with one, letting it crawl all over their arms. Their giggles were infectious (let’s hope the ants aren’t!) and I was glad to see them overcome a fear.

By: Marshall Miles

Marshall Miles — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:26:35 +0000

Terry…
All you need is love!!!
Don’t kill the ants…redirect them by finding where they are gaining access, then, take some coke (or pepsi, or whatever your favorite heavily sugared drink is) and make a trail away from your house!!!! It might take a five or six cans, but it works!!!!! Make the Trail far enough away so they keep going, PREFERABLY TO YOUR NEIGHBORS
(THE ONES YOU DON’T GET ALONG WITH) PROPERTY!!!!

Remember..MILES FOR SENATE WRITE IN 2006!!! Our campaign slogan…
“It’s time for real people to take back the Senate”

By: Robin Leech

Robin Leech — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:05:04 +0000

Well Terry, you have posed an interesting blog. Just imagine that you and your family decided to take a short cut through the Berkshires Valley of the giants and all of a sudden a giant foot came down and squashed you as you were innocently trying to get to Gt Barrington to see your cousins. How mean that giant foot was, seeing you as an invasion nuisance, and you had no chance to explain yourself to that giant!! Shame on you. Yes ant are a nuisance insect but I very much doubt that the ones in your house, or Fred Baumgartens were actually carpentar ants so you both have probably jumped to that conclusion. I too have had an ant march through my house over the last 10 or so days but it had nothing to do with the rains, and everything to do with some social order discovery. I had both tiny reddish ones, and larger black (but certainly not carpentar) ants. I watched there march, did NOT squash them like many others-(except those I might accidentally have not seen on my floor), nor did I even go get ant traps. They are fascinating creatures and quite interesting if one has the time to watch them, with inquisitiveness! If you ever had an ant farm when growing up, watching them was something. Anyway, great blog topic; they are mostly harmless and one result of their appearance in my house was a thorough cleaning of my counters of any attracting foods, such as sugar grains, sweet liquids, etc. The ants are mostly gone now, on their own, without any damage to my house or psche and though a few got accidentally squashed, I actually removed the larger black ones-hard to catch, but catchable-to the outside. But, just think of what it would feel like to have a giant foot land on top of you-in the Berkshires valley as you were innocently trying to get up to MASS, for whatever was on your mind! Feel the pain! Cheers!

By: Fred Baumgarten

Fred Baumgarten — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 02:04:30 +0000

Dear Terry,

I feel your pain. We’ve been battling carpenter ants for several months now, though in the last couple of weeks — whether because of the “ant motels” we bought or not — their numbers seem somewhat reduced. But just when we thought we had them under control, we started getting those pesky little ants.

The question addressed to me by the LJ interns was actually whether the increase in ant “sightings” was indicative of a population increase. My skepticism, therefore, was directed at the improbability of confirming or quantifying such an increase. How does one measure such a thing when there are billions of ants to begin with?

People often do report noticing more (or less) of certain things — more turtles crossing the road, more birds singing in their backyards, more ferns growing, more bees stinging, etc. The difficulty in all these cases is that accurately assessing populations of many types of living things is quite difficult, and scientists spend lots of time figuring out how to sample them to get some sense of populations trends.

Take birds, for example, which I am most familiar with. When someone tells me there have been more of, say, robins this year, is it because they’ve happened to notice them more, or there happen to be more in their immediate vicinity? Even those of us experienced amateurs, not to mention professionals, who conduct surveys such as the Christmas Bird Count are subject to such vagaries as the weather on the day or the survey. Only by the accumulation of large quantities of data do some of these “survey errors” get smoothed out.

As for the ants, it sounds as plausible to me as to anyone that saturated soil might drive them indoors more, and who am I to question the exterminators of the world? In other words, it could be a real phenomenon, but I think of it as somewhat outside the purview of a self-proclaimed nature columnist.

Cheers,
–Fred–

By: Judy Jacobs

Judy Jacobs — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:29:22 +0000

We too, have been plagued by ants. We ended up spraying around the outside of the house which seems to have done the trick. Also, I place bay leaves around my kitchen counter and in the cupboards to repel ants and other insects. Seems to help and as a plus, bay leaves are non toxic.