FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Help, on saterday, i noticed some ants on my S. alata. On sunday, I found out they were building a nest in my plant. So on sunday, i put the pot under water to get rid of the ants. This worked until just now. I was looking on the plant and saw about 5 ants. Me, being curius, decided to stick a toothpick in the dirt and about 20 more ants cameout. Are the ants a problem to my plant? What can i do to get rid of them? I don't want to use any harsh chemicles becuase the plant is flowering and is putting up new leaves

They don't do any damage to the plants. I once had a bee living in a pot

But yeah, back to the ants, you may find that get annoying if they're indoors, but otherwise they'll serve as food for the plant and nothing else.
I'm not sure if you can get Provado insecticides over in the US, but if you can then that'll do the trick just fine and not harm your plant.

If they are in your soil, I think the ants will dissapear once the soil is wet, they dont like constantly wet soil, so if your plants are in growth get them wetter, if dormant spray or move the pot to another location. It is certain that they wont be nesting in a pot plant as the colony will probably be too large to fit in it, so they must be using it either as a nice warm extension to their nest or as a conduit to food.

Cheers
steve

Acephate seems to be the insecticide of choice around here. You can go to Lowes/Home Depot and get this, it's 75% acephate if I remember correctly. Just mix the recommended dry amount with some water and pour it in the pot. If it's a small pot you can probably use less than what they recommend for an entire mound.

Though to be honest the ants won't harm anything. I had a colony of black ants living in my mini-bog for a while. They were too small to trigger the flytraps, they just walked all around collecting bits of dried bugs and such.

I've had several ants around my pitchers plants. Like Daniel said the only time they are a bother is when your plant is inside, but if the plant is outside just leave it. My purp especially gorges itself on ants and I've never seen an harm from the ants. I wouldn't worry about insecticides unless you have a more damaging pest.

Could i repot the plant to get rid of the ants?

Yeah, you could, but they may just come back to the plant afterwards.
In my opinion it's not really worth the trouble, unless of course the plant is indoors.

I am going to repot it. Thank you guys.

you could also drown them out

Starchy wrote:you could also drown them out

I tried to but then they didn't all leave. The just came back. But anyways, tha plant is now repoted and is doing great.

Good luck. I hope they're gone for good!

Thanks. So far, so good.