More ants this year?

veryintrigued

Hi there

Might be a daft question but has anyone else noticed lots of ant hills (well small mounds which when the top is removed have lots of weird 'under developed' light brown ants with eggs)?

We have mound after mound on them on front and back lawns.

After having a long, long dry spell we are now into a long wet, wet spell. Is it related?

ladylouise62

I've had much fewer ants this year , which would be due to the rain - they need a dry nest. Maybe yours were always there but have changed how they appear by 'building upwards' due to the wet soil.

whenIretire

I have more ants this year than I have ever seen before. In the lawn, in the veg patch and in the greenhouse. Everytime I plant something else in the veg patch there is another lot of them, everytime I weed I seem to disturb another nest. Fed up of the little blighters, especially when they bite!

And I seem to have more greenfly this year too - which the ants love to look after - grr. Think this is due to the lack of ladybirds. I noticed loads of ladybirds early in the year but they seemed to disappear not long after.

SailorSam

I just been out pouring kettles of boiling hot water between the cracks of the flags on the patio, i thought i'd killed them all off earlier this week but they're back again.

A._Badger

Many more ants than previous years here (Kent).

Spamfree_2

We've had them in the house for the last few weeks in the living room. Not nice.

SailorSam

Spamfree wrote: »

We've had them in the house for the last few weeks in the living room. Not nice.

That's what worried me when i was putting boiling water on them out on the patio, i thought what if this makes them move to a new home, inside the house.

lizzie157

We had a nest under the grate cover where the washing machine outlet pipe empties. I went to get the kettle but in the meantime H had dropped his bucket on them (he was washing the car and we have an outside tap over the grate), so he had to hose them away. I've put some nippon down but we have had a problem with ants in this area for years. I've resigned myself to just keeping the numbers down rather than getting rid and trying to keep them out of the kitchen. However I hadn't had any inside from a nest that size I'll never know.

jenie_2

Definitely more this year, we are getting them in the kitchen which hasn't happened before. They are also all over the garden, much more than last year (black ants).

shays_mum

OMG about 3.30pm this afternoon had masses around, went up the road 5miles away same thing. Those big flying ones as well - hate them :eek:

Did put some talc on the ones on my drive seems to have made them go, but where??aarrgghh!!