1st Time!!! Carpenter Ants

[Patriot]

I have never had this problem but carpenter ants are eating the stalk..peeling it out and away.....I have also some type of burrowing warm that its killing my flowering plants...any help please!!!!!

 

[DemonTrich]

Diatomaceous earth will mess those fuggers up real bad. Sprinkle/dust that stuff all around your soil and they walk thru it and die. It's like super tiny shards of glass that get on their body and cut it to shit. In layman's terms. Lol.


Anything sweet around? A nest? Wood, logs, damn areas all the time?

 

[Seamaiden]

Borax, Terro baits, Tanglefoot or even Vaseline around the base of the plant. Mix the borax with sugar, it's the same thing as a Terro bait but homemade.

 

[Patriot]

Diatomaceous earth will mess those fuggers up real bad. Sprinkle/dust that stuff all around your soil and they walk thru it and die. It's like super tiny shards of glass that get on their body and cut it to shit. In layman's terms. Lol.


Anything sweet around? A nest? Wood, logs, damn areas all the time?

Wood around about 50 feet.....also compost next to it about 5 feet

 

[Dunge]

Track them (probably outside in a tree trunk) to their nest and hammer it hard.
In my experience, this will reduce their capacity to send out scouts, and reduce their sphere of influence.
I do not believe they can survive as an expeditionary force.

 

[DemonTrich]

Find the nest, treat them like spider mites or they'll keep coming back.

 

[Patriot]

I ll try to track them but ....not enough time to .

 

[hermit186]

If you don't find the hive they will be back.

 

[Bulldog420]

Borax, Terro baits, Tanglefoot or even Vaseline around the base of the plant. Mix the borax with sugar, it's the same thing as a Terro bait but homemade.

No idea how much borax your talking about adding, however I see the possibility of that effecting the soil. I had somebody give me some guidelines on Borax and 11g = 2ppms of Boron per yard of soil. When I added that amount, it added up to more like 3ppms per 11g.


Spinosad says it takes care of fire ants I believe. Might work for carpenter ants. Rent an ant eater from the zoo?

 

[Seamaiden]

Borax would be mixed with sugar and kept in a manner that the ants can actually eat it, you don't want to, say, drench the soil with borax. The goal is to get it into their bellies and the colony, that will kill them/it.

Hm, according to this article carpenter ants will just gorge on the borax+sugar mix and never take it back to the colony. They say squirt DE directly into the nest. I've never been able to find an actual nest, just found the ants in random places, freaked out about it, called a pest guy, ordered him to use organic only, yadda yadda yadda.

http://www.diynatural.com/how-to-get-rid-of-ants-naturally/

 

[Patriot]

The bad news is that I have pets, indoor and outdoor cat. So Borax and sugar are out of the question....i am gonna try to coat the lower part of the plant with vaseline see if it works...i will also cover the holes.....It sucks...my plant is almost done too....the stem is the size of an original red bull can....lol

 

[Patriot]

So anyone ever had them eat the bark ? is this a normal problem ?