Flying Ants plague Dublin!

Dub13

They are little Cnuts...were do they all come from...?I dont remember having this problem when I was younger...are they a bi product of the Celtic Tiger.they must have came in with Dell,Microsoft and all the IT company's.

munkeehaven

anyway they are better than bloody ticks !! when i was younger, me and the family went to portumna in galway, you know the park with deers..and bloody heck what happened when we got home? we were covered in fecking ticks...i thought it was a freckle but then i saw the legs ..ughh...you have to crush them between your nails to pop them..it's phucking sick...they are so tiny too......when my dad was working in africa, this woman came to the hospital and she had a tick on her butt that was the size of her palm...aww man he always tells us that story at the dinner table..you can get lime disease from them...

projectmayhem

apparently all they do is mate. yes. they're horny bastards... that's all. they'll be alive for about 2 weeks, then pull their wings off and woddle off under a rock.

you can get a plug-in thing that emits a high frequency that keeps them out of your house, if it's a huge problem (can't say i've seen any around these parts of Dublin)...

Tommy Vercetti

I fried a bunch of the ****ers in my back garden earlier with a blow torch, I'm not taking any **** from these guys. I was itchy all night just thinking about them.

Death to ants! Vive la resistance!

Signed: The Anti-Ant Movement.

Third_Echelon

Originally posted by Jesjes
A friend of mine can hear those machines. He came home one night and they had one on in the kitchen, and he fell on the ground and curled into a ball!!/B]

I dont think its humanly possible for that to happen... I reckon he was just taking the piss...

LoneGunM@n

Ranelagh is crawling with them for the past week ... I work in an old victorian house & he steps up to the front door are covered in cracks & the lil bast@rds are like a carpet on it!

My mam works in Superquinn [Knocklyon] & she was saying that the footpaths down there are covered with them!!

LegacyUser

those ant's kick ass, stop whining ya little sissy girls, those ants stopping you making your daisy chains in peace ?

and yes, they come every year, those complaining were probably in nappies last year
i'd rather walk through a cloud of ants than a congested grafton street any day

bug

Its mad the amount of people who dont know why and that this happens every year . Im more worried about the weather, I have noticed that the ants usually pick the hottest few days of the year around August to do this in previous years. I wonder if this says anything about the remaining summer weather
The big ones with the wings are drones by the way the wings fall off and they generally die off. The queen comes back down from the air after getting "done" by one of these, finds a new home in some crack in the ground and lays a **** load of eggs their. vola! new colony.
Im not sure if the drones bite, the workers do (normal size ants that wander round), and it hurts like hell, they inject formic acid into you.

Tommy Vercetti

The queen sounds like a right slut, may she burn in hell for her moral emptiness.

Ronan|Raven

Pffy city folk terrified of a few ants.

Flukey

What is all the fuss about? It is only for a few days in the year. Remove all the insects from the world and we would be in big trouble, for the short period that we would be able to live without them. They do a lot more good than harm. Remove the insects and our whole eco-system would collapse. Without their assistance in pollination for example, the gardeners out there would not have much to look at and the rest of us would starve. There are lots of other reasons why we need them, which well outnumber the ones we don't, so put up with a few flying ants for a day or two!

Kastro

i was walkin from the dalkin to tallaght via the belgard rd the other day.. i should have walked on the road amongst the cars.. it would have been safer..
they were consuming a rat.. and i think it was still alive..

Capt'n Midnight

Have you seen THEM ?

dathi1

hehe "Them" my fav Sci FI early 50's pic

The big ones with the wings are drones by the way the wings fall off and they generally die off

Wrong way round...the queens are the big ones and the males are smaller. They can fly miles up hence the Swifts making hay before the big push south next week. Believe it or not even the seagulls join in.

Flukey

Well Kastro that is one less rat you have to worry about!

cujimmy

From yesterdays (Glasgow) Herald

Alarm as swarms of amorous ants turn the skies dark

IAIN WILSON, Chief Reporter July 29 2004

MILLIONS of biting, flying ants have emerged across the west of Scotland for a mating frenzy, sparking fear and alarm among the public.
The unprecedented scale of swarms in the past 48 hours was caused by male common black ants all taking to the air at the same time to trail females who have left nests to mate and establish their own colonies.
Swarming usually occurs throughout August, limiting the numbers – and sightings – on any given day. However, perfect atmospheric conditions have led to synchronised appearances of unimaginable size as new queens take wing.
Eyewitnesses told of swarms, pursued by hungry seagulls, turning the sky dark – and of ants landing on people's hair and covering cars.
Some insect experts insist that the ants bite, but others argue they merely spark the natural human reaction of itching.
Glasgow has been worst hit in the warm, humid weather, with the council inundated by hundreds of complaints from distressed people. It warned that more swarms are likely over the next few days.
A Glasgow spokeswoman, noting that only one male per swarm is successful in mating and all others die within three hours, said: "We're talking ant Faliraki here."
As the ants are not officially regarded as pests, local authorities will not treat infestations – unless homes are invaded.
Nor will councils tackle swarms in public places, including prime Glasgow shopping precincts such as Gordon Street and St Vincent Street, because the insects are on the wing.
Glasgow yesterday advised worried people to use insect repellants when outdoors and ant powders in gardens, where many queens start new colonies. Although the swarms are spectacular, the ants are said to pose no medical risks.
Outbreaks were reported as far north as Argyll and Bute, with East Renfrewshire and South Lanarkshire also recording increased complaints. Elsewhere, Dundee has logged more than 50 sightings – but Edinburgh experienced nothing beyond the norm.
Geoff Hancock, insect collection manager at Glasgow University's zoology museum, said people should "grin and bear" the outbreaks, likely to end within a week.
Katrina McMahon, 28, a cheerleader with Scottish Rockets, the basketball team, told of her car being blanketed by ants in the city centre.
She said: "The 1970s film The Swarm came to mind . . . you could put a saddle on them, they were that big."
A council spokesman said: "We have tried to put callers' minds at rest. Some found it very distressing, especially when the males landed on them as they died."

BaZmO*

cujimmy wrote:

Glasgow has been worst hit in the warm, humid weather, with the council inundated by hundreds of complaints from distressed people.

I dunno! Why the hell are people complaining to the council? It's called nature, it's not as if the council released them into wild on purpose!! :rolleyes:

B.

stormkeeper

Third_Echelon wrote:

I dont think its humanly possible for that to happen... I reckon he was just taking the piss...

Actually, no. There is a friend of mine whose ears get hurt by ultrasonic waves, like those from bats. I even felt my ear do something when the bat used its echo-location...

Flukey

Apparently they have recent discovered that squirrels can communicate by sounds inaudible to the human ear, like bats.

Micheal Wittman

Interesting post

Herr Krupp Of Essen

lee_baby_simms

Dunlaoire is infested!

yesterday i was sitting on the backdoor step of a friends house when i noticed some ants without wings crawling out from under the step. I stood up and stamped twice on the step and bang!! It was like call of the wild. At first we just watched them scurry about, its kinda hypnotic, before we realised they just kept coming till the ground turned black and soon loads of em were getting into the house.

We sprung into action for the first wave of strikes.

1. Boiling water: This took care of most of them, or so we thought.

Second wave.

2. Aerosol and lighter ala flame thrower: not fully implemented due to poor targeting capabilities although we managed to pick off a few rebels.

Final Wave.

3. Garden Hose: The most humane method seemed to do the trick.


After 40 minutes of fighting it was over.

Cant underemphasise the care, the strategic targeting that went into these strikes although we later encountered some small pockets of resistence but we got bored and left them to tend to the wounded.

The war is on... :mad:

Flukey

Shouldn't you have called in the UN or had your attack been vetoed? I'd be careful, they have got a huge army and the airborne division is quiet impressive. They seem to have no shortage of recruits ready to die for the cause - whatever their cause is!

If you don't want to kill them, you can frustrate them a bit. Sweep their piles of sand back over the holes. That drives them mad. Some sand will fall back in, but if you get a twig and start poking down into the holes you'll get a whole load of it to go back in. That's enough to keep them busy for a while or two. You can do it from the beginning of the summer when the piles first start appearing, not just this week. If they keep taking it out I am sure you can take them to court. I doubt they have got planning permission for their excavations.

The Real B-man

yeah the little bastards infested my hotpress 3 weeks back crawling everywhere got the queen one big ****er too! god bless nippon

Flukey

Nippon? I think some people in this thread would use napalm if they could get their hands on some!

lee_baby_simms

nice one flukey. i knew i'd get support from fellow liberators.

the battle is joined on many fronts now, we shall fight on the patios, fight on the paths, fight on the steps...we shall never surrender!!

Flukey wrote:

If you don't want to kill them, you can frustrate them a bit

Frustration first, then death.

Flukey wrote:

You can do it from the beginning of the summer when the piles first start appearing, not just this week.

can we stick to the ant infestation problem?

JoeSchmoe

tis Kent Brockman, on the simpsons episode where Homer goes into space

Flukey

We have to fight them early to win. No point waiting until they launch their attacks.

This just off the wires. The IRA have just made the following statement?

We, the members of the Irish Revolutionary Ants, wish to suppress those who would attack our brother ants. You may have covered our bunkers, but we haven't gone away you know!!!

Further news:

In an effort to combat the marauding ants a no-fly zone has been declared in all gardens across the Dublin area! The IRA and their supporters have denounced reports that people intend to use chemical weapons against the ants and said that this is a breach of recognised international standards. This however has been disputed by a number of experts in the field who stated that people are well within his rights to use such weapons. The IRA have strongly condemned this view and has called for UN inspectors to check all properties for traces of these weapons. There has however been no response from the UN.

In another sinister development and proof of their growing international influence, it has been reported that the Irish Revolutionary Ants have had contacts with the Fascist Ant Revolutionaries of Colombia. While FARC are not regarded as being as militant or dangerous as some of the Middle-Eastern ants, the contact between them and the IRA has caused alarm among security sources. While no links have as yet been proven between the IRA and some of the Middle-Eastern groups, this possibility has not been ruled out.

Authorities are warning people to be on guard and although the current uprising from pavements is expected to be short-lived, they should report any suspicious activities to the relevant authorities. These ants have similar, but often more deadly, armies all around the world, and should word get to these from Ireland the consequences could be disastrous. The current uprising must be crushed, literally. Be on your guard.

We will update you should there be any further news. We now return you to your scheduled threads.

chewy

god me mother is going mental with them

are we not more in danger of catching caner or something from all the stuff people have sprayed to try and kill 0.01% of the ants?


atleast there not midges urgh

Lady

yeah stupid flying ants, i think they are blind cause they litreally fly into you, really annoying little buggers.

Flukey

It's deliberate! That's their Kamikaze division.