Ulog 3 for May 20 - Why Do Ants Have to Share?
My mom tried Dtube but it won't upload so we put it in YouTube.
Here's our organic strawberry patch. It's small for now and my mom and dad are planning on moving it to a better spot so they're not under the direct sun getting toasted.
You can see in the video why some of our strawberries are partly eaten. We're sharing it to other critters. What can you advise?
I'm also showing you our wonderful herb patch! I helped my mom transplant the sage in that herb patch.
Anything dirt work, I really like. If I can use my shovel, I'm all for it.
We have a bunch to do in our homestead! I'm building muscles and eating good so I can help like a big boy. And also, get dirty :)
I'm not a mom but my mom is in this group so if you are a mom please join them.
That appears to be ordinary sugar ants harvesting your strawberries before you do.
There are thousands of kinds of ants, and some of them enslave or prey on other ants, rather than strawberries. You might look into what kinds of ants do that, and see if it might be a good way to control the sugar ants.
It is wise to be careful when using biological controls, however, as it is too easy to cause another and even worse problem than losing a few strawberries, such as getting a fire ant infestation.
Boric acid, a dry, white, non-toxic powder, is a good control for sugar ants, but I can't find it anymore around here. People confuse it with Borax, and many liquid ant baits have Borax in them, which doesn't work nearly as well.
Boric acid works by being sharp crystals, which when mixed with ordinary table sugar, the little sugar ants will carry into the nest with the sugar. The crystals cut open their chitinous shells, and the ants dehydrate, which kills off the whole nest.
People don't have shells, and don't dehydrate when exposed to Boric acid, which doesn't have noxious chemical properties like many pesticides used to control ants. Have a look at that and see if your folks think it's safe to use on your strawberries.
Good luck!
Boric acid yes, my dad said something about putting out honey and boric acid ant traps. We tried peanut butter and boric acid but it doesn't work as good.
Dad said you can still get boric acid from Walmart. Ours are called Enoz Roach Away Boric acid.
Guess what, my mom found out there's snails eating them up too!
Snails and slugs will eat them all if you let them.
There's no Walmart near me, sadly =/
Borax liquid baits don't work for me. Boric acid, though, has worked well. Being a dry powder, I find mixing Boric acid with a bit of sugar works well, but anything that gets it wet makes it not work. It works by cutting the exoskeletons of ants, which causes them to dehydrate, and if it gets wet, it doesn't have sharp edges to do the cutting anymore.
So mixing it with liquids like the oils in peanut butter, or honey, will make it dissolve and lose it's ability to cut open their shells. So will a little dew, or rain. It won't last long outside unless you make a kind of container that keeps moisture off it, but that the ants can get in.
If you have the kinds of snails there we do here, those snails are better to eat than even strawberries! LOL I love escargot =) A bit of garlic butter, chives and snails MMMMmmmmm!
Good luck!
Thanks, we will try it. We dusted it with dietoemaceous earth (I can't spell that) and it didn't do anything but made everything dusty and dirty looking.
Escargot? Snails? I don't think so. It's not a good concept.
Clearly, you're learning well to think for yourself, and that's a credit not only to you, but to your parents. Kudos!
Diatomaceous earth (you did pretty good spelling it. Even Steemit doesn't know how to spell it) is good fertilizer, and deer don't like it. I don't think slugs and snails do either, so even if it doesn't help with sugar ants, it helps in other ways.
Good work!
I love you Strawberry Patch. I have the same problem with ants.
Maybe dlive