Ants!

I have to admit, I haven’t seen a single red ant since I was 13 years old - that is, since I got the allotment.

I thought they’d died out, but they haven’t - they are alive and thriving in South East London.

Their activities seem to be centred around my broad bean plants at present. They are making sure that the tips of the plants are covered in aphid (i think the plural of aphid is aphid…).

I have been reliably informed that instant coffee will deter the ants from returning to the plants. It would certainly stop me from coming back - I’ll post any results after the weekend.

Written by exmonkey on May 17th, 2006 with 4 comments.
Read more articles on Allotment.

4 comments

Read the comments left by other users below, or:

Leave your comment |trackback |RSS

chris
#1. May 17th, 2006, at 5:35 PM.

i was at lec with luke once and he decided to pee on an ants nest and byt he time he was finished he was covered in red ants biting him

exmonkey
#2. May 17th, 2006, at 6:00 PM.

There is a moral there somewhere.

Your friends seem to have a limitless capacity for hurting themselves in ever more inventive ways.

Which one was it who impaled himself on a railing?

Mention from 5rods.co.uk
#3. May 18th, 2006, at 12:24 AM.

Ants! - 5 rods: originally posted on http://www.unitedbyyucca.com by exmonkey

gilesbooth
#4. May 20th, 2006, at 3:50 PM.

Think I dug up about 5 red ant nests today - and here’s the interesting thing - two black ant nests.

So, this suggests that red ants are out-breeding black ants 5:2 on our plot.

I’m also intrigued that their nests were so close together - as I child we held it as an absolute truth that red ants and black ants were sworn enemies like the English and the Germans, cowboys and indians or Penelope Pitstop and The Hooded Claw.

I should really have isolated a black and a red ants’ nest and set them side-by-side on a table-top - in the name of advancing scientific understanding, of course.