Found this huge ant colony just 25 feet away from a row of trees in my orchard. Is that good or bad? And if it’s bad, what should I do?
I have had some ants kill trees if they are like within 5 ft or so.
25 ft you may be ok ? Or maybe not.
I have the Allegheny mound ants , make big hills
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I’ve never really liked the whole ant / aphid relationship in my fruit trees. I use a little ant bait from time to time to get rid of them.
Sevin powder
ants, or at least some species, are supposedly one of the primary predators of coddling moth. if that’s true, I wouldn’t doubt it if they preyed on other pests as well.
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Ive never seen those red and black ants farm aphids or in trees i would leave them unless their farming aphids theyre probably beneficial as a predator
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Thanks everyone. Haven’t had any problems with aphids the past 4 years, so I’ll leave the ants alone for now.
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Ive seen artists pour molten aluminum in an ant hill. The piece of artwork remaining after it solidifies is incredible. Unfortunately not everyone had a foundary for melting aluminum. Lol
Never had a problem with ants and I see them crawling all over my trees - and when I say all over I mean if I look at any 6 inches of the tree there will be at least one or two ants there. I read that they feed on the extrafloral nectaries in a symbiotic relationship so I’ve mostly left them to their devices unless I start seeing aphids.
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