DID YOU KNOW THIS ABOUT ANTS?

(With Reference from http://www.infowest.com/life/aants.htm)

Ants have been living on the Earth for more than 100 million years and can be found almost anywhere on the planet. It is estimated that there are about 20,000 different species of ants. For this reason ants have been called Earth's most successful species.

Ants build many different types of homes. Many ants build simple little mounds out of dirt or sand. Other ants use small sticks mixed with dirt and sand to make a stronger mound that offers protection from rain. Western Harvester ants make a small mound on top, but then tunnel up to 15 feet straight down to hibernate during winter. Ant mounds consist of many chambers connected by tunnels. Different chambers are used for nurseries, food storage, and resting places for the worker ants. Some ants live in wood like termites. Army ants don't make a home at all but travel in large groups searching for food.

Sociology: Ants are social insects, which means they live in large colonies or groups. Some colonies consist of millions of ants. There are three types of ants in each species, the queen, the sterile female workers, and males. The male ants only serve one purpose, to mate with future queen ants and do not live very long. The queen grows to adulthood, mates, and then spends the rest of her life laying eggs. A colony may have only one queen, or there may be many queens depending on the species. Ants go through four stages of development: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.

Anatomy: Ants have three main parts. The head, the trunk(middle section), and the rear or metasoma. All six legs are attached to the trunk. The head consists of the jaws, eyes, and antennae. The eyes of ants are made up of many lenses enabling them to see movement very well. The antennae are special organs of smell, touch, taste, and hearing. The metasoma contains the stomach and rectum. Many species of ants have poison sacks and/or stingers in the end of the metasoma for defense against their many predators.

Organs: Ants do not have lungs. Oxygen enters through tiny holes all over the body and Carbon Dioxide leaves through the same holes. There are no blood vessels. The heart is a long tube that pumps colorless blood from the head back to the rear and then back up to the head again. The blood kind of coats the insides of the ants and is then sucked into the tube and pumped up to the head again. The nervous system of ants consists of a long nerve cord that also runs from head to rear with branches leading to the parts of the body, kind of like a human spinal cord.

Communication: If you watch ants for any length of time you will see that they really do communicate with each other and very effectively too. Ants communicate by touching each other with their antennae. Ants also use chemicals called pheromones to leave scent trails for other ants to follow.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ANTS

If a man could run as fast for his size as an ant can, he could run as fast as a racehorse.

Ants can lift 20 times their own body weight.

With their combined weight greater than the combined weight of all humans, ants are the most numerous type of animal.

An ant brain has about 250 000 brain cells. A human brain has 10,000 million so a colony of 40,000 ants has collectively the same size brain as a human. Ant brains are largest amongst insects. An ant's brain may have the same processing power as a Macintosh II computer. Thousands of years ago, King Solomon wrote: "Go to the ant, consider its ways and be wise".

The average life expectancy of an ant is 45-60 days.

Adult ants cannot chew and swallow solid food. They rely on juice which they squeeze from pieces of food.

The abdomen of the ant contains two stomachs. One stomach holds the food for itself and second stomach is for food to be shared with other ants.

There are over 10000 known species of ants.

Some worker ants are given the job of taking the rubbish from the nest and putting it outside in a special rubbish dump.

Some birds put ants in their feathers because the ants squirt formic acid which gets rid of the parasites.

The Slave-Maker Ant (Polyergus Rufescens) raids the nests of other ants and steals their pupae. When these new ants hatch,they work as slaves within the colony.

If a worker ant has found a good source for food, it leaves a trail of scent so that the other ants in the colony can find the food.

Army Ants are nomadic and they are always moving. They carry their larvae and their eggs with them in a long column.

The Army Ant (Ecitron Burchelli) of South America, can have as many as 700,000 members in its colony.

The Leaf Cutter Ants cut out pieces of leaves which they take back to their nests.

Wood ant workers live seven to ten years.

The queen ant lives up to ten or twenty years.

The wood ant can threaten the enemy with open jaws.

There are thirty-five thousand kinds of ants in the world.

Some ants sleep seven hours a day.

Ants are normally from 2 to 7 mm long, although carpenter ants can stretch to 2 cm, or almost an inch.

Some ants care for and "farm" other insects.

THE ALL-TIME FAVOURITE ANT KILLER?

Today, i started off with cleaning my backyard and removing all the twigs, leaves and sands. Then i used my favourite ant killer liquid (Multipurpose cleaner with orange oil). I sprayed the liquid directly on the ants that i see running around and they died instantly. I tried spraying on the black carpenter ants which was quite big in size and i needed to spray three or four times only. The black carpenter ants as well as the other ants all died instantly.

I figured that if i killed the worker ants, there would be no worker ants to provide food to the queen who must be waiting in the ant hills. I also sprayed the liquid on ant hills. After a while, i waited and watched the queen ants come out of the ant hills. They were bigger in size compared to the worker ants. I guess it was the queen ants by its size. I realised that if the queen ants doesn't see any worker ants returning back to the ant hills for a long time, the queen ants probably go out in search of food themselves. I dont know if this is true but it is just my guess.

Whatever may be the reason, i was quite satisfied that the ants were reducing in number in my backyard day after day. I hope to see my backyard completely free from any ants one day.

KILLING GARDEN ANTS THE NATURAL EASY WAY?

Hi everyone! Here are some of the ways i used to get rid of Ants which were destroying my garden and backyard. I got mixed results. Some methods worked out well but some did not even had any effect on the Ants. I personally uses the Multipurpose Liquid Cleaner with orange oil which i find is the fastest way to kill ants instantly but i dunno if the liquid cleaner would do any damage to house interior.

1)The first idea i tried to kill the Garden ants was to use Multipurpose liquid cleaner with Orange oil that you can get from Dollarama Store for $1. I used it to kill the garden ants and found that they die instantly as soon as they come in contact with the liquid. My Garden is a lot better than before now.




2)Then i bought Liquid Ant Baits. I got them from Canadian Tire or Walmart for $3.99 or Above. They came in 100ml size but I only needed a few drops to use on ants. I put the ant baits near the ant hills and in a few days time, the ants came back bigger and more scary. COOL DOWN! They look bigger because their body were bloating from the poison that they just ate. Eventually, i found all of the ants dead by the third day and the ant hills gone. I must say this was one of the best easiest method to wipe out Ants. NO SWEATS!



3)I read about alternately, putting some chilli powder and garlic powder on ants trail or near ant hills. This disrupts their trail and they were sent scattering away which discouraged them from building ant hills. But the problem was that there were still alive and came back more in numbers.


4)To destroy ant hills and the rest of the worker ants instantly, i used boiling hot water. I Poured boiling hot water on ant hills. For better result, i mixed some white vinegar with the boiling hot water. I also mixed another solution of hot water with glass cleaner (Windex/Multipurpose cleaner). The hot water killed the ants instantly but the next day, they were back to look for a place to build ant hills again.


5)Another method was i used Diatomaceous Earth (DE). Diatomaceous Earth consist of the sedimentary deposits formed from the skeletal remains of a class of algae (Bacillariophyceae) that occurs in both salt and fresh water and in soil. When the tiny razor-sharp particles comes in contact with ants, they cause many tiny cuts, resulting in loss of body fluids. DE is the secondary ingredient in a variety of insecticides. DE being a natural product is harmless to mammals and birds and is digestible by earthworms. This item was expensive, it worked for a while but it didn't stop the ants from coming back.

6)A very important thing to note that most people ignore or forget, was to keep the garden or house very clean. If there are leaves, stones, dirts and tree branches in the garden area, there is bound to be ants.So, I cleaned up my garden and didn't leave any tree branches or stones lying around as ants like to build ant hills in these places. I fixed any wall or floor cracks since ants start their nest from within the holes & Cracks. This proved to be effective because i believe that the ants could not find anything left to eat after i cleaned my garden and backyard. Still the ants kept coming back but lesser in number.

Natural or organic insecticides used to kill ants.

I have tried the following methods below and I am eager to share which method of killing ants would be the best and most efficient without spending too much expense.

Natural or organic insecticides are those which come from natural resources. Boric acid, is mixed with other things like sugar and boiling water. It can also be mixed as borax soap with sugar and water and is safe to use around pets and small children. The mixed solution can be sprinkled along the entry points of the houses and apartments or campers. The ants carry the mixed substances into the ant hill and feed it to the queen ant. Little do they know that they were just carrying poison back home. When the queen ant consumes this, it dies and leaves the colony with no other queen to reproduce infant ants. Therefore, the whole single colony is destroyed.

Another natural insecticide to use as an ant control is cayenne pepper, made into a liquid and used as a spray. Pepper plants can be grown for this purpose. Hot peppers are also used to control or kill other insects.

Corn meal can be used as ant control; it’s a low-cost alternative to poisonous chemicals. It’s a food the ants like to eat, but can’t digest. How this works is that it is believed that when ants eats the corn meal and then drink some water, the corn expands inside their stomach and causes them to explode and die.