Ants!!!

[rainbowbrite]

i went to my compost bin today and it was moving on the inside, on closer inspection i have an ants nest! last year they moved into my house with me so im glad they have found somewhere else this year and i don't mind leaving them but i just wanted to check with you clever people that they won't be any problem, what do you think?

[supergrass]

This may behelpful

Royal Horticultural Society - Gardening Advice: Ants

Max.

[rainbowbrite]

thanks supergrass, just what i needed, the ants shall stay then, i just hope they don't come back to the house, they were living in my electrics last year!!!

[Cloud]

Yeah mines full of em and don't seem to do any harm.
But they are making a nuisance of themselves in otherparts of the garden,Any ideas of organic control would be helpful.

[rainbowbrite]

i get them by my peas as well, they do my nut it, i got one of those plastic disk things which has poison in and they are supposed to take it back to their nest and kill them all but they started living in their so either the poison is rubbish or they are super ants

[SueA]

i went to my compost bin today and it was moving on the inside, on closer inspection i have an ants nest! last year they moved into my house with me so im glad they have found somewhere else this year and i don't mind leaving them but i just wanted to check with you clever people that they won't be any problem, what do you think?

The fact that you have ants nesting in your compost could mean that your compost is a bit too dry & maybe also not heating up enough. I'd add a bit more in the way of veg. peelings, green waste & give it a 'stir' if you can do it without disturbing the ants if you're happy with them there. I've had ants nests in the garden occasionally & although they're not supposed to do any harm I lost some alpine plants once when they took over a raised, well drained alpine bed & destroyed all the plant roots when nesting.

[Paul Wagland]

We have huge red ants (wood ants maybe?) all over one of our plots. When they bite you it's like a wasp sting!

I've read (on here I think) that semolina will kill them... you put it down in little piles, the workers carry it back to the nest and feed it to the queen. It blows up in her stomach and kills her, which means no more baby ants, so the colony dies out.

I'm trying this now but it's too early to say if it's working - does anyone else know of this technique?