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  • From: Neil Bertrando <neilbertrando@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Fire Ants in Permaculture
  • Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2012 19:34:11 -0800

Don't know of any great uses for them. patience and observation may lead
us to discovery.

for mgmt. of them if you do invite them in, I read a great little tidbit,
not yet tried by myself, in Countryside and Small Stock Journal. If you
mix two different nests together, they will eliminate each other since they
are very territorial. Hopefully this gives you a simple exit strategy if
you do not like the results of any experiments you try.

good luck
Neil

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Lawrence F. London, Jr. <
venaurafarm@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On 3/2/2012 12:29 PM, Chris Carnevale wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Has anyone heard of or seen any models of using fire ants to till garden
> > beds? They make the soil so loose and friable-similar to pigs. I was
> > thinking it might be possible to bait fire ants to an area that I want to
> > convert to growing area by leaving something sugary on the ground and
> then
> > letting them do their work. Has anyone tried this? Success? Disaster?
>
> Fire ants do amazing work. They seem to have been much more active over
> the past 4 years around here. We will see if that continues this year. I
> welcome them. I have no idea what attracts them, voles or gophers
> either; if I knew I would try to increase their populations on my farm.
>
> The physical power of ants is sometimes hard to believe. I have a very
> hard packed crusher run (ABC quarry material) driveway and parking area.
> This material has been compacted when wet with huge fully loaded
> dumptrucks and daily traffic for many years; it is next to concrete in
> hardness. I have seen ants create shallow trenches, maybe 3-6", into
> this material all the way across the driveway and in several places.
> The do as fire ants do, excavate the material, tilth it and mound it up
> along the sides of their trenches. You can see the thousands of them at
> work doing this, zipping back and forth across the drive. If they can do
> this to a driveway think of the potential for tilthing a farm field or
> garden. I do not worry about stings; I just stay out of their way. They
> build their mounds, seal them up and just want to be left along. If you
> scratch the surface they will swarm to repair any damage. This is
> probably when people get stung.
>
>
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