White Oak, Black Ants

[Haston]

I cut up a large white oak this morning and discovered a large colony of carpenter ants. I kept cutting the tree into rounds but haven't split it yet. What does one do in this case, junk the wood (unlikely, I'm guessing), split and segragate from the rest of the pile, ignore the ants, keep the wood as far from my wood house as possible (duh, I'm guessing), exterminate? Any thoughts? H.

 

[begreen]

Definitely keep it away from the house. I'm wondering if you sprinkle a bit of pure Borax on each level of the pile as you stack it, if that might deter the critters. Also sprinkle it around the perimeter of the pile and refresh during the summer.

 

[Robbie]

Mix a one quarter cup (or less) dish detergent to one gallon of warm water in a pump sprayer (10 bucks at home depot), spray all over rounds or anywhere you see ants on the ground using medium spray.

Don't shake or agitate sprayer while mixing to avoid bubbles, fill slowly with water.

I don't think this would hurt anything as far as burning these splits at a later date because most if not all of these detergents are considered biodegradable and most of the solution will evaporate quickly anyway.

I use a detergent mix like this on everything around my house, kills all bees and most other insects on contact, even while flying, including ants.

Lots of fun on yellow jacket nest too ! :lol:


Robbie

 

[BrotherBart]

I use a pretty involved and high tech way to handle all of the ants I find in oak every year. Split it. Let it lay there for a day and they will be gone. Stack it.

I have never found a sign of an ant twenty-four hours after I split the stuff. They go looking for a more peacefull place to hang out. And I have never found any in the wood pile.

Found a big black snake in the pile the other day. Maybe he eats the ants.

 

[Robbie]

See, BB has wisdom and experience, I have never had to deal with them so far, just around my house sometimes and so far the soap does the trick.



Robbie

 

[jpl1nh]

I,m with Brother Bart. Seems like once you start to break up their happy home, they don't want any part of it anymore.

 

[babalu87]

I use a pretty involved and high tech way to handle all of the ants I find in oak every year. Split it. Let it lay there for a day and they will be gone. Stack it.

Yup, ants are there because of the moisture, once it starts drying out they will move on. As was said, just keep it away from the house.

 

[Haston]

Thanks for the advice, especially with regard to the dishwashing soap. A mix of Dawn and warm water laid waste to the ant colony, but I eventually decided to take some of the wood to the county dump. I cut into a large section and it was like a horror movie with the way the ants poured out. Very large ants with wings and smaller workers, but it was bascially every ant for himself. Anyway, the oak was within 20 yards of the house, so I use the soap spray to kill much of the nest-- and hauled the wettest, knarliest sections to the dump. As always, you guys are a great resource. H.

 

[colsmith]

It was helpful to read this thread. I encountered a few ants myself this year, not anywhere near the situation described here, but still I spent some time thwacking wood and squashing ants. The funny thing is, I have used dish soap and water in a sprayer to kill ants and a few other bugs in my garden for many years. But I never though of spraying the wood. Since I am always wanting firewood to dry, it didn't occur to me to spray water on the ant-y wood.

Robbie, when you say you kill bees with this mixture, I hope you are using the term loosely and actually mean wasps and yellow jackets? I don't know of any reason to kill bees, the poor things are disappearing fast enough as it is. Bees die if they sting you, so they have no incentive to do so. I have only ever been stung by a bee when I stepped on it barefoot.

 

[Robbie]

Sorry to not clarify ,

I never kill bees...........just yellow jackets, hornets, and wasp that make nest on or around my house.


Robbie

 

[Gooserider]

Agreed... the soap mix is fatal to honeybees though, some folks use it if they have a few bees that they can't get out of a super that they are pulling off a hive, or other times when they have one or two that have followed them inside or someplace else they shouldn't be...

OTOH, wasps and yellow jackets I see as being quite good to kill, and do so any time I get a chance... All they do is give honeybees a bad reputation! Worse, they've been known to attack and kill honeybee workers.

The big problem with wasps and yellow jackets is that they can sting as many times as they want, so they are far more willing to do so - I call it the "Dirty Harry attitude"

BTW, in many places honeybees are a protected species, you aren't even supposed to kill them.

Gooserider

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Here's another high-tech way to get rid of the ants.

One winter I was splitting a big ash and found a huge packet of ants in 5 different logs. Okay, it is below freezing so they aren't going anywhere. Time to get the thinking cap on. Ah ha! Daily there are some turkeys that walk through. Wife also feeds birds. Okay. Steal some bird seed, draw a path from where turkeys cross and all the way to the ants. Bingo! Within an hour from the time I spread the seed, those turkeys started eating seed and it took them right to the ants. An hour later I go out and all ants are gone! Only problem was I had a hard time keeping the turkeys away from that woodpile for a couple weeks until they finally decided there was no more free lunch coming.

 

[Gooserider]

Here's another high-tech way to get rid of the ants.

One winter I was splitting a big ash and found a huge packet of ants in 5 different logs. Okay, it is below freezing so they aren't going anywhere. Time to get the thinking cap on. Ah ha! Daily there are some turkeys that walk through. Wife also feeds birds. Okay. Steal some bird seed, draw a path from where turkeys cross and all the way to the ants. Bingo! Within an hour from the time I spread the seed, those turkeys started eating seed and it took them right to the ants. An hour later I go out and all ants are gone! Only problem was I had a hard time keeping the turkeys away from that woodpile for a couple weeks until they finally decided there was no more free lunch coming.

Reminds me of one of the legendary "Great Hacks" done by MIT a few years back. All summer one of the students made a habit of going down to the football stadium, putting on a black and white striped shirt, blowing a whistle and throwing out a few handfuls of bird seed.... He then stood back and observed what happenned when the fall came along and football season openned.... It seemed they had this problem with birds on the field for some reason :coolgrin: Best part is the student then wrote the whole thing up and turned it in as a Psych research paper for credit!

Gooserider

 

[DiscoInferno]

Reminds me of one of the legendary "Great Hacks" done by MIT a few years back. All summer one of the students made a habit of going down to the football stadium, putting on a black and white striped shirt, blowing a whistle and throwing out a few handfuls of bird seed.... He then stood back and observed what happenned when the fall came along and football season openned.... It seemed they had this problem with birds on the field for some reason :coolgrin: Best part is the student then wrote the whole thing up and turned it in as a Psych research paper for credit!

Gooserider

Snopes

 

[Gooserider]

Well my source was a MEMBER of one of the MIT "Hacking Societies" while being a participant on the "Orange Tour" - This is an "invitation only" tour normally only offered to students, by the hacking society. We got the invite through knowing several members in non-MIT contexts. This is a VERY non-official tour that starts at midnight on the roof of one of the dorms, and takes one through some of the various underground passages of MIT, the steam tunnels, into some of the more accessible vaults and catacombs, up onto the top of the small dome and the pyramid, etc... It also includes much of the oral tradition of the societies, particularly discussion of the past "great hacks" that helped to make the school famous...

Gooserider