Best way to deal with ants ?

[Mr Fizzion]

I kill large swarms of ants on my patio with a blowtorch. They do seem to like living in small cracks in concrete, so fill those up.

Mr F.

[John Schmitt]

[ants]

If you can track them back to their nest, circling the exit with flowers of sulphur (which should be available from a chemist - perhaps a couple of days)ought to do the trick. Sulphur (which I am now told must be spelt "sulfur" - stuff 'em)is not terribly toxic to mammals(ever heard of brimstone and treacle?), but sticks to the ants as they cross it so the carry it down into their nest where it slowly volatilises and finishes them off. It is pet-friendly, but needs replacement after rain.

John Schmitt

[Mary Fisher]

Who told you that?

You still won't stop them permanently, only the ones which are killed. There are billions more.

Mary

[John Schmitt]

The bit about "sulfur"? IUPAC.

It will eradicate the nest, which I think the OP was after.

John Schmitt

[<me9]

Well the americans would say that, they can't spell english.

>

[John Cartmell]

It's an 'allowed' spelling for UK public examinations (along with aluminum) - presumably because of the contamination from US sources. AFAIK no-one has yet made it mandatory. Those spellings will not find their way into my dictionaries.

[Mr Fizzion]

Yep. It was the silly old fool called Noah Webster who first changed proper spelling to American spelling. The trouble is he only did it with some words. He changed aluminium to aluminum but failed change sodium to sodum and potassium to potassum. Well perhaps he hadn't heard of them since they were discovered in the England around the time he was writing his dictionaries and word travels slowly to america.

Moral of the story: never trust a dictionary that has webster in the title.

Anyway IUPAC accepted that changing aluminium to aluminum was stupid, so aluminium is the official spelling.

Mr F.

[Mary Fisher]

And what authority does that have?

My point is that by destroying one nest - or a hundred nests - there will still be ants to bother him. Sometimes we have to learn to live with other creatures - they had to learn to live with us. Ants, wasps and bees among very many other cretures were here long before we were and didn't feel the need to destroy us when we happened.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

WHAT??? Your history is faulty.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Hm. I don't think spelling is considered in UK public examinations any more, even in English papers :-( Mustn't stifle creativity you know ...

Nor mine. But I didn't realise that Al WAS spelt 'aluminum' - I thought it was just how it was pronounced there. An American doctor friend and I argued long and frequently (and happily) about this. She spelt it with the second 'u'.

Mary

[John Schmitt]

Ample, as Bentley used to describe the power their engines delivered.

Should mankind decide on a moratorium on any particular species and pursue it rigidly, history would indicate who exactly will win. Smallpox is effectively extinct in the wild and other diseases are being targeted. While it was not men who directly eliminated the dodo, it was their unwitting actions. As for the passenger pigeon, you can draw your own conclusions.I am not suggesting that this should be done without a very careful investigation of the effects on the biosphere.

John Schmitt

[John Schmitt]

Then again, you did not spend part of your schooling there. Between East and West coast US Italy, Leeds and London education, I think I could describe my education as bordering on cosmopolitan. Never mind the spelling, the dialects English has developed are a minefield. Try looking up the nearly contradictory meanings "blue" has in Australian English. Closer to home, "cleave" has an interesting dichotomy.

John Schmitt

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

Armillatox does the job.

Make hole in ants nest and insert a plastic funnel. Into this pour a

20:1 solution of armillatox and allow to soak into the nest.

It may well kill any surrounding grass but it'll soon grow back.

It's sold as a garden cleaner due to EU laws on garden chemicals..

sponix

[Mary Fisher]

That hasn't worked with locusts.

But not being eradicated. smallpox is the exception which proves the rule.

Oh come on! You can't compare the extinction of birds with the extinction of hymenoptera.

[Mary Fisher]

I wish you'd make your points clearer.

No they're not. But we weren't discussing dialects.

So have many words. Your point is?

[Mary Fisher]

So it's an illegal use of the product.

Mary

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

The EU decreed that any garden chemical introduced before 1993 has to be re-tested, a process that costs many, many tens of thousands of pounds per product. As armillatox has always been a niche product the manufacturers simply couldn't afford to have it re-tested.

Hence, it is sold as a cleaner.

It's perfectly legfal to use as a cleaner. Whether it's illegal to use as a pesticide or not is open to question.

All I know is it's one of the few things that kills ants nests!

sponix

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

[John Schmitt]

Try googling "sulfur" and "sulphur". the "ph" spelling is dying out.

Only because of inertia on the part of the authorities. You need a bit more weltanschauung.

Smallpox took 20 years and more to be finished off. With international travel becoming a norm, the problem is more complex, but not insurpassable. TB and tetanus already have the health services' knee on their windpipe, as regards their human effect. Even influenzae are being tightened up on. With the 'flu jab being widely used, the number of carriers is reduced, so the impact of an epidemic is greatly blunted by the lack of potential carriers. Derive and conduct the mathematics independently and we will see if we have the same answers.

Or virii?

Apparently unintentional but,

13 hymenoptera species in Hawaii alone, plus a large collection of their companions.

A carefully engineered parasite should suffice to control, if not eliminate locusts.

John Schmitt

[Mary Fisher]

I leave that sort of intellectual pursuit to those who need a hobby.

And the rest.