and ANTS--ANTS and more ANTS--UFF

barbaranoela · Post by **barbaranoela** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 4:35 pm

Due to all this rainy weather every day appears it has got the the ants happy to be roaming around the inners of the house-----UGH!!! had one lollying on my BED!!!! sooooooo I gently picked it up---and said *how would U like a nice cool refreshing swim--ummm??

and I dumped him/her into the toilet bowl!!!! good swimmer-I have to say!!

Sorry if I have BUG luvers here but no BUG is sleeping with me!!!! that is besides the *human* one---

My DIL would have a stroke if she heard what I did---I killed a spider-in AZ. one year--and she went into a tizzy and said *MAW U should have just pick him up and put him outside!!!! Right~~~ the next time I shall do that!!

Hope everyone is coping with this crazy weather-----we had sun---darkness--thunder and then pouring rain again--and then the sun came out *smiling*

luv ya all
Barbara

Post by **tex** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 8:48 pm

Mrs. Columbo,

If the imported fire ants that we have here, ever make it out to Arizona, your DIL will probably learn to make an exception for ants.

It's hard to love those blister-making little buggers.

I hope that was the only ant in your bed. The year that we had all that flooding, (2007), a colony of fire ants moved into the house, and set up residence under a chest of drawers in my bedroom. Until I figured out where they were camped, every night, during the wee hours of the morning, they would wake me up, by stinging me. Silly me, I just assumed that they were coming in through a door or window, and I kept treating a buffer strip around the house, (which pretty much guaranteed that they couldn't safely go outside, and was probably the reason why they moved inside, in the first place.

). After about a week or 10 days that dawned on me, and I tracked 'em down to that dresser.

We're still having the opposite weather, here - hot and dry.

Luve,
Galahad

barbaranoela · Post by **barbaranoela** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 9:22 pm

hi Galahad---yes I know U guys are sweating like crazy---and I am sure that when our nutty weather changes into the regular hot--sticky --muggy summer days we will be complaining about that also

But the good old AC will sooth the grouchy moods---

The first *ants* were coming up thru the bathtub drain so we kept that shut---but those smart little devils found another way to crawl around--
I was wondering the same---are they hidden behind the furniture?? BECAUSE one of the little buggers was walking up my arm---that one I *SMACKED* to its demise!!!!

We are pretty sure its due to the constant rain -plus Mr. L--power washed the entire outside of the house---so perhaps he disturbed their *CONDO* and they running inside??
Our neighbors had some visiting also!!!

Maybe our Termite guy can give us some suggestions---I also was wondering about some sorta stripping around the base of the house--??

Anyway---my neighbor said---*dont worry they dont eat much* very FUNNY I answered back!!!
Have a ~~~~~~~~~

and will catch U tomorrow~~~
Luve Columbo

starfire · Post by **starfire** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:56 am

I don't put up with ants, spiders, wasps, bees, roaches, mice or other creepy crawleys in my house either and I'm not choosy about how I eliminate them from "indoors".

I can vouch for Tex's statement that if she encounters fire ants she will not only go to great measures to keep them "outside" - she will probably do everything she can to keep them "off her property". In florida I use a "treatment" for them that keeps them at bay for a year. It really works. I treat the area around my place faithfully. Before I started using that I had to be very careful where I stepped outside.

Anyway, I'm with you, Barbara. I'd smack them too!!

Love, Shirley

Pat · Post by **Pat** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 2:02 pm

DH just won't tolerate pesticides, so I found diatomaceous earth ( I think I spelled it correctly). I get it at the feed store here in Texas. Anyway it works.

http://www.dirtdoctor.com/organic/garde ... ion/id/21/

Pat

Post by **tex** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:11 pm

Pat,

I used to use a bag or two per year, (50 lb. bags), to treat the grain storage tanks, when I was growing and processing food corn. It definitely works to keep out weevils, and various other stored grain insects. I know of someone local who has a lot of dogs, who uses it to keep fleas from getting out of control in his yard, in the years when they can be a serious problem.

I've never known anyone who has tried using it as a wormer, though. I wonder how well that works. The popular explanation of the mechanism by which DE works, (desication), obviously, by itself, does not apply within the intestines, so some other explanation is needed.

I used to know the fellow who originally promoted this product in Texas, (he lived at Eagle Lake, but he would travel around the state to visit feed stores, grain elevators, grain processing facilities, etc., to "pitch" his product, which he called "Insecto". I can't recall his name now, and he's long gone, (I believe a company in California owns the product rights, now), but he always claimed that on a microscopic level, the edges of the DE particles are very sharp, and the reason why the powder is able to desiccate insects so effectively, is because it scarifies their exoskeleton, which initiates the dehydration process. (The reason why the dust doesn't feel "sharp" to the touch, is because the particles are extremely small, on the order of several microns - a micron is one millionth of a meter). Anyway, I have a hunch that the abrasiveness is the key to the reason why DE works to control helminths. IOW, they die from the cumulative effect of thousands or millions of microscopic cuts. I don't believe that the intestines of the host animal would be affected, because they are protected by a thin layer of mucus.

Has anyone here used DE to worm your pets?

Tex

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:01 pm

Tex,
Didn't we discover that DE was the same clay that is used in the "Guts and Glory" diet praised by a former member? If it works to kill helminths as theorized, how does it work to keep MC symptoms under control?

Gloria

Post by **tex** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:16 am

Hi Gloria,

No, that diet contains bentonite clay, which is a very fine-textured, dense, relatively non-porous clay. Diatomaceous Earth is a very light, porous material, made from finely ground diatoms, (single-celled organisms), composed mostly of silicon. These are very contrasting materials. Bentonite clay has the ability to mask certain mycotoxins, but DE doesn't have that property, as far as I am aware. I would guess that DE might be irritating to someone with active MC.

Tex

Pat · Post by **Pat** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 7:07 pm

Tex,

I do know someone who uses DE as a wormer for his dogs. (He's the one that told me about DE) He puts it on their food and he claims it works and that their coats are shinier! Who knows if it really works for worms or the shiny coats but he does put it on their food and they eat it!

I just use it for ants. BTW we aren't seeing fire ants anymore! DH thinks it's because of the drought. Any guesses? When we had fire ants I used to stir up the mound with a stick and then stir the DE in the mound and Voila! No more ants. I don't think I eradicated ALL the ants because I just used it in our yard. We don't even see them in the pasture!

Pat

Post by **tex** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:25 pm

Hmmmmm. That's interesting. The dirt doctor claims, "from the article you referenced", that

DE will not hurt earthworms or beneficial soil microorganisms.

Maybe the earthworms just tunnel away from it, otherwise some of these claims could be a bit contradictory, at least on the surface.

Fire ants are becoming increasingly scarce around here, too, but they aren't quite gone, yet. All the flooding that we had in 2007 killed a lot of them, because they weren't able to get their broods high enough to avoid the water, but I don't see why they couldn't have eventually recovered from that. Also, they lived through some worse droughts than this, in 1984, 89-90, and 96. We appear to have some "new" ant species living here, now, and I wonder if they might be eradicating the fire ants. I also wonder if the fire ants might have succumbed to a native disease, that the native ants have resistance to.

I've noticed at least one big disadvantage to losing the fire ants. A few years after the fire ants moved in, all the deer ticks disappeared - the fire ants got 'em all. Now that the fire ants are becoming hard to find, the deer ticks seem to be back.

Whatever it is, that is exterminating the fire ants, it isn't something that we are doing to try to control them, because I've almost stopped "treating" them, and they are continuing to decline, here, just the same. As you pointed out, we have never treated the pastures and fields, (which amounts to at least 99.99% of their habitat), but they are almost completely gone from there, also. 10 or 15 years ago, you couldn't walk in some pastures, without stepping on a fire ant mound. You couldn't pull off the road to change a flat tire, because your boots or shoes were guaranteed to be covered by swarming fire ants, within a few seconds after stepping out of the car. Those pastures are virtually free of fire ants now, and so are the roadsides. So far, though, I haven't run into anyone who has the foggiest idea why.

We're just mighty lucky that those ants were "imported", or the EPA would already have this entire area in a stranglehold, after declaring it "prime habitat for an endangered species".

Tex

starfire · Post by **starfire** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:38 am

tex wrote: We're just mighty lucky that those ants were "imported", or the EPA would already have this entire area in a stranglehold, after declaring it "prime habitat for an endangered species".
Tex

Boy, isn't that the truth!!!!

Love, Shirley

Pat · Post by **Pat** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:14 pm

I am so glad we don't have to protect them. They really are a nuisance!

We noticed the decline in the deer ticks also. Haven't seen them again ----- yet.

Pat

ant · Post by **ant** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 10:37 pm

Perhaps after eating all the deer ticks they are running out of food!! Just a thought - Ant

Post by **tex** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 9:04 am

Ant,

Fire ants will eat virtually anything and everything. Any baby animals that are not capable of jumping up and running off, almost immediately after being born, are very vulnerable. That includes newly-hatched birds in nests, also, even in trees. With smaller animals, they would devour the entire animal, and with larger animals, they would sometimes destroy the eyes, and occasionally damage other organs. After they became established in this area, we couldn't even plant corn, without treating the seed, (or the seedbed), with an insecticide, first. They would eat the germ right out of the seed, before it could germinate.

That's why it's so difficult to believe that they're disappearing. They were the most competitive predators that we've ever seen, IMO. Not many people in Texas will lament their passing, though. We had to put up with them for slightly over 40 years.

Tex

ant · Post by **ant** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:31 pm

Tex. Oh my goodness!! I had heard of man eating swams of ants in the jungles (via Hollywood action films) but never realized how nasty my namesakes really are!

Living to much in cities and the gentle shires of England I suppose.....

All best ant (very, very distant relation to those other ants):angelnot: