#ant murder

[futurebird]

I should be sent to jail.

I feel like such an idiot. A klutz, a total jerk. I killed my Dorymyrmex queen while changing the tube to their nest. Sometimes I feel like they do much better when I just don't mess with them at all. Every bad thing that's happened has been because *I* did something.  I was trying to connect an additional nest since they have been growing so well, and all of them were on the other side of the little box, but the queen spazed out and ran over to the tube and got hurt. 

They have a massive pile of brood. A beautiful outworld that I at last got right. And then I murdered their queen. I should be sent to jail.

She was such a lovely queen. Kept her wings for three years.  I'm going to miss her and I'm devastated that I won't get to see the colony grow. 

At first I didn't even want to say anything about this, but that's silly. The lesson here is that changing nests and tubing is always dangerous to your colony. And I KNOW that. But, yeah. It's the worst part of this hobby how fragile they are and how responsible I will always be for what happens to them. I feel like such a monster. Like I shouldn't even be near any ants.

Why didn't I find a different way to change that tube?

Am I too sensitive?

IDK. I really love my ants. I try to be good to them in exchange for the strange way they have to live. I try to be grateful for the things I learn from them and the joy I get from watching them. But, maybe that queen would have had a much better life in a sidewalk crack in a quiet corner of the park. Poor girl. Poor colony. I'm so so sorry little ones. I really ruined it for all of you.

They will keep going for months, when my Pogonomyrmex queen died... it was a whole year until they were all gone. They even laid male eggs. So, many male alates. Then I had to figure out what to do with those boys. 

I wonder if the Dorymyrmex will do that. That would be nice.

[futurebird]

"Hey, Futurebird, you like ants so much but I can't get rid of mine what do I do?" Here is my advice about pest ants.

1. Identify the species. 2. Find their source of water and eliminate it. 3. Find non-pest food sources (ants can be predators) and eliminate. 4. Find their nesting medium and eliminate it. You want to do those three things before you use baits, or spray anything or call a pest control company. To eliminate their water and food you can try offering them a small bit of sweet, or a dead insect (almost all ants love either) and wait for them to make a trail. Use the trail to find their nest and/or how they are getting in the house. Their queen (or queens! this is why you want to know the species) may not even be in the house. You can follow them and seal their entrances, fix leaky pipes, secure sweet food etc. If they are bigger .25 to .75 inch ants they could be carpenter ants. These ants will reuse old termite nests or build nest in dry rotten wood. Find and replace rotting wood and thank the ants for the warning. Ants can't chew structurally sound hardwood. The most common carpenter ants are black. But they come in other colors too. If the ants are small they could be one of many species. Ants come into human homes for warmth, food and water. If you can cut off their water they will leave or die and not come back.

Ants are like extra annoying house spiders. Unlike roaches which, if you see one, you should probably spring into action aggressively, ants are generally part of your local ecosystem so try not to freak out and lace your house with poison right away. Not only is it not healthy for you and your pet to use insecticides , it gets into the local water and harms soil health. And after all that when the poison is washed away the ants will come back because the housing, water and food are still there.

I can't stress enough how key water is to all of this. Another factor is humidity. As you eliminate sources of dampness crank up the AC and make it dry and cool in your house. Most ants hate that.

If this still isn't working trace their trails and put the spray directly into the nest. Then seal it. The danger is always that you are only killing workers and the queens will keep cranking out more. Only at this point would I consider baits.

You are introducing poison to the food chain. But if the ants are in your electronics or in your food storage you might need to go more extreme. But just try to understand what you have. A colony is an intelligent and complex creature.

If you understand the ant species you can think like an ant colony and make your house a "bad nesting location" and never haver trouble again.

[louliette]

did we just all agree to not adress the fact that when you kill an ant you get a fucking waft of something citriusy