f'ing flying ants!

[MontyVeda]

Just been to make myself a brew only to find sh!t loads of flying ants crawling here there and everywhere!

so out came the napalm... but I've no idea where they're coming from. Had an infestation a couple of months ago, which I assumed was 'flying ant day' ... but again!!!

Anybody know anything about the little buggers before i start ripping kitchen units out?

 

[TVC]

Flying Ant Day part II here as well. At least I now know I've done for the nest outside my kitchen because there's nothing there today.

 

[Stu1961]

Had the same problem for years.

Ants nests can be streets away from where they emerge, every flying ant (large ones) are female queens, the smaller flyers are males and will try and mate with a 'Queen' flyer, the small males die after a few hours.

The 'fertilized' Queens will then flutter into the air and let the wind carry them, when they land they will bite off their wings and burrow into the ground, from there another nest is started...........interestingly, when the flyers emerge, is the only time the small wingless Black Ants will bite (protecting the flying queens)

The flying usually signals a storm or rain (but not always).

We have not had them at all since we had a complete new kitchen fitted but, I'm sure they will be back soon.............we tried rentokill and all the poisons on sale, only thing you can do is.....find out where they are coming in and use Ant Powder (Nippon is good) and dust around the hole where they are getting in but......keep watching because they will chew their way through the mortar, plaster, wood or whatever, to make another exit hole.

We used to get so many, we had to hoover the dead bodies up.

 

[Seigi]

We had them in our chimney once, to get rid of them we sprayed a load of raid up there and closed the chute, later on we lit the fire to kill anything else that was up there, that got rid of them, luckily it seems they were in an easy to rid-of place.

Another time we had them just outside the back door in a crack, so I boiled some water, added bleach then poured down the hole and that seemed to kill them.

 

[MontyVeda]

yeah used to get them by the gate postin my old house every year... genocide by kettle is always fun.

This time they're on the carpet, on the radiator, all around the window and the oven first time I've had them in this house and i've been here 9 years... so I suspect the nest is indoors

 

[Stu1961]

The ones we had were in the kitchen, the nest was just outside the back door (near the back steps) but the ants were coming out of the skirting board on an inside wall.

You would be surprised how far they will tunnel and through what, these ate through the plaster behind the skirting.

I spent a whole year reading up on them, trying to find a way to stop them......boiling water only kills the ones you can see, it's the millions of others and the QUEENS you need to kill............there can be up to 1,000 queens in a medium sized nest.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

It's strange, I only remember having one big ant breeding day per year, but this seems to be the second. This morning I noticed something crawling up the side of my wardrobe and thought it was a beetle of some sort. And, of course, it was a flying ant. I didn't kill it though but if it finds comfort inside the ancient accordion that's been gathering dust on the top I may have to take it out and set fire to it.

There are some people who don't think you need any excuse at all for setting fire to a squeeze box but as long as nobody touches it or uses it as an ants' nest I don't see the harm.

 

[XmisterIS]

Had a swarm of flying ants in the garden today too, they must have some kind of synchronised collective consciousness.

 

[G-Zero]

There are some people who don't think you need any excuse at all for setting fire to a squeeze box but as long as nobody touches it or uses it as an ants' nest I don't see the harm.

Nice one - That's so random it should be your signature

 

[biggs682]

they taste yuk as well when swallowed as riding with mouth open

 

[Davidc]

had the little bu99er$ nest in the cavity of a wall last year. had to take off a window sill to get at them. No survivors and they're not back in there this year. Now they've got under the driveway and are causing damage despite powder, nippon and boiling water. Indestructible mutant nija ants!

Hate the ba$tard$.

they taste yuk as well when swallowed as riding with mouth open

Nice scrunching noise though when I rode over several thousand coming out from under the drive earlier on.

 

[calibanzwei]

Went through several swarms of the blighters yesterday afternoon

 

[vernon]

Today appears to be the day for Meanwood.

Loads of them emerged from a patch of gravel by the front of the house. There were lots of airborne ones a mile down the road at the local Waitrose.

 

[MontyVeda]

there were numerous reports on radio one this afternoon. It's two days from payday... so I'm currently experimenting with WD40 as a means of killing them, or at least stop them sticking to the wall... it's either that or the numerous canisters of Lynx i seem to get every christmas... but the Lynx effect may attract more queens!

any top tips for home made ant killer?

 

[aberal]

How odd. Just came back inside from dispersing the ant powder at the step at my back door to come across this thread. Synchronicity or what? Hundreds of the flying types, males and a few queens, the workers had spent days clearing out an exit for them. In human terms they must have moved the equivalent of thousands of tons. They were finding their way into the kitchen hence the need for the chemical warfare - though I do say, I do hate using that stuff on them.