Ants?

[callie]

Hi Gang - I'm new to the site. Happy I found you all.

Long story short - I gave an orchid as a gift and now the plant has tiny tiny ants, which are known in the state of Florida as sugar ants, phantom ants or ghost ants. I've read your site but can't quite figure out what to do. Someone made mention of hydrogen peroxide but I can't find the first part that gives the instructions on what to do with it. I'd really like to do something that is rather simple to treat this as I'll need to do it in someones home... I don't even want to put the orchid in my car to bring it home... Can I just soak the plant?

THANKS!

[mayres]

Welcome to the forum Callie! Ants in and of themselves do not harm orchids, but they unfortunately have a nasty habit of bringing other nasties with them including aphids and mealy bugs - which they then "farm" the nectar from both insects and exuding sweet liquid from the orchids. Never heard of using hydrogen peroxide for pests - it is usually used as a "natural" treatent for disease organisms. Thre are a number of products made to stop ants outside the home by putting a perimeter around and then a number of products that will rid you of the inside ants as well - my favorite is terro liquid ant baits.

[prisana]

Mike , I like Terro also, it works very well with ants inside the house.

Callie, Welcome to the forum.. I'm using ant spike right now for my 'chids in the yard, which have hordes of black ants living in their pots. I should take a pic or two next time I water, the ants would come up with eggs in their jaws , running for their lives. It's disturbing, what's worse is that the ants ignore the poison spikes altogether, so I spent $8 for nothing. Soaking doesn't work, since they would just climb up on the leaves to get away from flood and be back down into the medium later ( don't lsoak the leaves, you could end up with the rot, which is much worse. But I guess you can wipe them off, having only one orchid... I'll keep looking for better solution for us.

[Anton]

I sprinkle ant sand all around the ground where my cyms are, works well.

Failing that put your ochid in a sauser of water and stand it on pebbles to keep it above the water line, works well as an old fashioned moat. Ants don't like to swim.

[Hummer344]

Torro is a boric acid solution. You can make your own. 3cups water, 1cup sugar, & 4teaspoons Boric Acid powder. Bring mixture to boil and stirr until solids are dissolved. you can put the solution in caps of milk jugs etc, then place where the infestation is. As with any other killer it can affect children and pets so be carefull. The ants eat the sugary solution and carry it back to the nest. The boric acid forms crystals in their stomachs and the ants die from exploding stomachs. The other ants eat the dead ants & also ingest the boric acid and they die to.
Sorta nasty uh. Ah well, we can never kill all the little buggers.

In places that you cant get at, nor your children or pets, you can sprinkle the boric acid directly there. When the ants walk through it they get it on their bodies. The ants in the nest clean the acid covered ants, ingest the stuff and die as mentioned above.

[blksunsh1ne]

Oh yes, sugar ants...... I raged a massive war on them a few months ago. They were living in MY CAR!!! They werent runnin around where u sit,but they lived in the rubber moldings and behind plastic parts. I tried everything, even put a bomb in there (looked like the car was on fire-HAHAHA) then a pest control guy was going to my neighbors house and i asked him what i should do. he gave me a plastic packet called Terro-PCO ant bait. I placed little droplets in strategic places, and they ate it up, and i havent seen them since. And i had them in the car for like 8 months. i think you can get it at lowes..... hope this helps

[janet_a]

gahhhhhh! just spent fifteen minutes with one of my catts in the sink under the faucet, running water into it and spraying down the little buggers that boiled over the top. i go out of town for ONE WEEK, and therefore the cache pots didn't get sprayed with raid ant napalm death, and the damned things moved in!

now i've got terro traps festooned all over the pots. hmph.

[Tress-Anne]

Funny i should meet this topic today. Just this morning I watered on of my orchids on the porch and about 2 thousand black ants carrying the white young came running out. These black ants are called running ants here in the caribbean dont bite but just run all over (hence the name running ants). I took it inside and ran water over the entire plant and the basket it is in but they still kept coming out. This is a plant that I had newly set and so i threw out the plant and meduim into the sink and washed away all of the ants.
I even put the basket into the microwave for 35 seconds to kill any ant or young ones what may have been clinging in the creases.
I think they are all gone now.

Tress-Anne
from the caribbean

[PhalPal]

I would submerge the pot in water and rinse the ants off the leaves as they run to higher ground. After the mass drowning, dry the leaves and sprinkle boric acid or other ant powder on the medium for prevention. (kids and pets pending)

[janet_a]

yeah, that's why i did it in the sink--nothing of the right size to submerge the pot in.

[Charles]

Be careful of ants inside. The Pharaoh ants, or small red ants can infest your house. Spraying them with raid can spread them all over.

They generally nest where there is water. Kitchen or bath. But you are giving them water with the plant.

Use the terro. It is safe for pets and children in moderate doses. Boric acid must be consumed in massive quantities to be toxic. Unless you are an ant. imagine drinking something that turns into broken glass inside of you. The crystals are way too small to hurt people or pets.
Try putting the terro directly into the medium. just a few drops should do for a few days. Some people prefer to see the ants working the bait, if so put some on the outside of the pot. You may need to scrub it off later. I don't mean to run long here, but this question comes up often. I used to do Pest Control, so I have some working knowledge of pests and treatments.

Last thing. Adult ants can not eat solid food. They can only take liquids. Aphids produce liquids. Thus the relationship. But the baby ants, the small white things they carry away from a flood (some are still just eggs), they can eat solid food and give some back to the adults as a liquid.
This is why solid baits sometimes fail. The babies die too fast if the formulation is too strong. The adults stop feeding it and move away from the contamination. Staring a new nest nearby.
Liquid baits pass through no such check and balance. It is ingested and shared immediately by all. Use Terro or mix maple syrup with boric acid. A 50:1 mix is sufficient.
Sorry for the book.

[Charles]

I think I just lost a post. I have been having that problem recently. Hate it.

[janet_a]

yeah, these are the little black sugar ants (throws a thankful prayer the FSM's way...)

the terro's seem to do pretty well--after about three days of the critters crawling in and out (or crawling in and dying) their numbers are greatly diminished.

off to buy more ant traps..