Ants

[jemclimber]

Like many of you I bring home a lot of wood from jobs. I heat with wood and sell excess firewood in the fall. My neighbor seems to think all this wood is bringing in and attracking ants that kill her conifers (austrian pines and blue spruce mostly). She seems to think that they are attracked to the sap of these trees and then "eat" them causing them to die. She has lost quite a few of them even before I was bringing home a lot of wood, I believe it's the soil. It's mostly clay with very little top soil.

I always believed most ants especially in our area (they're not termites) eat dead wood not live wood. That is they are the after effect of dead wood not the cause. Kind of the way maggots eat dead animals, not living animals and causing them to die.

What's the general consensus????

Thanks for the help,

Jason

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Ummmmmmmmm i guess the general consensus is to believe Tom; that it would be cheating to use the AS search function and do your homework for you; to find the buried gold herein on that.

 

[Jumper]

I recall cutting a lot of pine for a friend ten years ago (lot clearing) that was really infested with carpenter ants. You could hear the little buggers grinding away and they left little piles of sawdust as they went. I find it hard to believe your neighbour's trees are being attacked by sap seeking ants.

 

[geofore]

Could ants to be the problem? Though some ants here do farm herds of black aphids on young pines and new growth. The ants are in it for the honeydew (sweets). Ants are more likely to gather up dead pine needles to make a medium for their underground mushroom farms than to attack a live pine tree. Mites would be a better answer. Spread a white sheet on the ground under one of the limbs and shake the limb, then see what falls on the sheet. Take a magnifying glass with you as your neighbor may have bad eyesight and mites and aphids are small. While you can see ants crawling up and down a pine they are not likely to be the problem your neighbor thinks they are. There are a host of other bugs out there to blame long before you blame the ants.

 

[Treeman14]

Just to clarify, ants do not eat wood. Ants will excavate dead wood to build homes, but they do not ingest the wood. Termites do eat wood. The ants are not killing your neighbor's trees. Find an arborist in your area who can diagnose and treat the REAL problem.

 

[notahacker]

Does this lady observe ants in her tree? If she can see ants, then she may have a valid point. If she cannot see them, then she is wrong. --Right?