Meat ants - help

23 years ago

We live in the hills above Perth and the soil is loam/clay/gravelly type. The meat ants (sorry, don't know the technical name for the things) are using the garden as a super-highway between nests. They run along the garden hose, along the limestone walls and .. well you know the story.

We've just bought some more Coopex which we'd tried before but it is only reasonably effective.

Short of asking the Americans to use the place as a nuke testing ground, anyone got any tried and true product for these particular pests?

Cheers, Barb

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Comments (7)

moreton
23 years ago
Hi Granville, you could try some Ant-Fix from the hardware/garden supplier or you could try boiling water down the nests. I wish you luck in your quest. Peter R
Daz2
23 years ago
We have Jack-jumpers and inchmen down here, Barb, and we use hot water...you'd need a good bucket to wipe out meat ants I'd imagine...or if the nest is big enough a litre or so of petrol or diesel down the main entry hole... then block the holes off...the fumes kill the ants ...the nests have to be on your place of course...good huntin'.

Cheers

Daz.
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ashmeri
23 years ago
Hello Barb, We used deisel down the hole, then put a bit of plastic over the top to keep the fumes in.
A tale in our area was that meat ants built their nests over a water supply down below.Not sure if this is right, but it may be just an old farmer's tale. I never went digging to find out.
Marion
Nosliw
23 years ago
Hi Barb.
I have used this with success against Green Ants (Rotten bitey things) and I expect it should work with the meat ants. I bought a small can (about 250ml) of Yates Fruit Fly and Insect Killer and used it as directed for ants, I sprayed it with a pump up garden sprayer over a circular area about 12 inches around the holes then put the nozzle into each hole and letr them have it for about 20 seconds.
The result was no ants the next day and they haven't come back for 3 months so far. It worked well for me. I must point out that it is a pretty strong poison. Good luck, I hope this helps.
Granville44
Original Author
23 years ago
Thanks for the advice everyone. The boiling water trick cleared them out for a while but they came back to live another day. Will try the Yates product as that sounds fairly promising but also the diesel (we're on a farm so there should be plenty around!)
Cheers, Barb
Jamie_from_Perth_WA
22 years ago
You need to be persist'ant'!
gardenlen
22 years ago
how do thay become a pest if they are just passing through the garden? we have them around our place some huge nests out in the paddocks we leave them alone they leave us alone. the worst the ones that are setting up close to the house do is come up on the patio and pinch the dry dog food. if they aren't doing any real harm maybe time to live and let live hey?

don't know do native ants come under the flora and fauna protection most other creatures do. and yes i've heard that they wouldn't be there if they couldn't source a good supply of natural underground water. never been stung by one yet had them run over my feet on many occassions.

lets look after the native species len.