Ants Everywhere

LeBash

This has been happening for the about 7-8 years. Ants with wings that can't seem to fly everywhere. I'm in Dublin 7 and work in Dublin 11. Came out of work at 10 and noticed them. Got home and they are everywhere. They go after a few days but ant powder doesn't seem to kill them. Anyone know what they are or how to get rid of them?

BeerNut

Seagulls.

SpaceTime

Completely normal. It's just ants having it off as part of their mating season.

They're also horrifically bad at flying as they only do it once in a lifetime. The Sunday drivers of the insect world.

You'll just have to close your windows.

mortimer33

The obvious solution is to get an Anteater.. It might not get on with a dog/cat if you have one though.

SMJSF

I actually found normal ants in my bathroom today... I'm in D9. Dunno how they got in!

Speedsie

Ah, flying ant day arrives!

zeffabelli

I had a swarm of them on the patio. I filled three kettles of boiling water at the ant hill source and scalded them to death.

Seems to have helped. Will do more later.

Mesrine65

Lighter & an aerosol works for me OP

Speedsie

Also, had been gone on for a little longer than 7 or 8 years!!!!

kylith

Speedsie wrote: »

Also, had been gone on for a little longer than 7 or 8 years!!!!

Absolutely! It's been going on as long as there have been ants.

It's not as bad this year as it was last year. Last year wan like the antpocalypse.

KingBrian2

All around St Green I saw lots of Ants. Begun to see them everywhere maybe all the digging has forced them up from the beneath the soil. Lets hope we won't get an infestation.

240 Robert

Try DOFF Ant Attack soluble sachets, just mix with water and spray along the edge of the walls and across door saddles.
I had an infestation of the flying ants a few years ago and it got rid of them in no time.

Anyone else see that swarm of ants today in Dundrum/Clonskeagh?

Got battered with them in Lidl carpark

If I was religious, I'd say a reckonings-a-comin'

antodeco

It's the yearly ant apocalypse. All the fliers (queens) are out looking for mates and a new nest!

SpaceTime

It's just ants. Nothing weird about it really.
Probably a good sign that the place isn't being bombarded with insecticides that would also kill pollinating insects like bees, a close relative of ants.

It's a couple of days of minor inconvenience and one of the wonders of the local ecosystem.

Thanks antodeco. Apt user name

odyssey06

D3 has also fallen to our new ant overlords...

tricky D

Threads merged

BowWow

SMJSF wrote: »

I actually found normal ants in my bathroom today... I'm in D9. Dunno how they got in!

Eircode?

SpaceTime

BowWow wrote: »

Eircode?

Ants have their own GPS satellites. They don't need puny human systems!

ixoy

odyssey06 wrote: »

D3 has also fallen to our new ant overlords...

D5 has also been taken out. At one point they found a vent into the house and started pouring through the gap. They plastered themselves over my window (well about 3 of them did) and the sky darkened...

SpaceSasqwatch

antodeco wrote: »

It's the yearly ant apocalypse. All the fliers (queens) are out looking for mates and a new nest!

this is why and also its loads of colonies as it helps against inbreeding.

mojesius

Two armies here in D9. One out the front and one out the back. There were fierce orgies going on. I painted a wall in the front garden and spotted them nearby fornicating. Just a tip, they don't seem to like paint as they fecked off after the second coat, so if your house exterior is looking grubby, now is the time. The ones out the back have been permanent residents in the patio area but the flying ants are new arrivals. Yuck.

odyssey06

The Journal sums things up here, apparently seagulls are our only hope to regain air supremacy...
http://www.thejournal.ie/flying-ants-2262701-Aug2015/

PolarRoscoe

The attack of the Sunday flying ants. The males will die soon and the females will retreat underground and lay more eggs for next year. The end is nigh

Lux23

Yea, the ants are all over the place. On the plus side, the seagulls seem to be gone.

Polar101

About 300 million of them in my patio (D15) - which is about 299.9 million more than normally.

Ciaran_B

Dublin 6 was an ant-filled nightmare yesterday. Horrible little basts kepts getting stuck in my beard.

Seans_Username

I walked over a load of ants in Smithfield beside the luas tracks. Scared the ****e out of me as I haven't seen any ants in a long, long time. Thought there might have been a dead body behind the walls or something (I've been watching the Wire recently so it's the first thing my mind goes to). Around the same time I saw something on reddit which was pretty interesting. Someone asked what happens when ants get separated from their colonies, and I thought this guy's answer was class

An ant that gets separated from its colony will search for its sisters. Largely that will involve walking in random directions until she finds, or fails to find a scent trail. If it fails to find a scent trail that will lead it home it will likely die of old age or exhaustion.
Unless it encounters another colony. If that happens it will be viciously dismembered and consumed by the other colony.
Unless it's an Argentine ant. Then it may join the other colony. But they're weird.
In the off chance it does find its own colony, it may still be viciously attacked and consumed if it's been gone too long. Ants recognize each other through scent, and if it's lost the scent of the colony, it will be treated as an intruder.
If two ants get separated from the colony they may end up following each other in circles until they both die of exhaustion. Which would at least be really entertaining to watch.

Followed up with

Ants have an extraordinary set of pheromones. They're largely controlled by what they 'smell'. The queen (or queens) of each colony produce all of the other ants and their scent is what the colony will smell like.
Maybe my all time favorite ant fact is that a dead ant produces a specific chemical that tells her sisters to move the corpse to the graveyard.
If you isolate that chemical and paint an ant with it, her sisters will pick her up and take to the graveyard where they'll just sort of dump her in a pile of dead ants and she'll get up and walk away.
But the next ant she encounters will pick her up and take her back to the graveyard.
At which point she'll try to leave again.
Her sisters will continue to put her in the graveyard until she's able to clean herself off.

A video of the ant's circle of death

John Mason

kylith

mojesius wrote: »

The ones out the back have been permanent residents in the patio area but the flying ants are new arrivals. Yuck.

No, they've been there the whole time. Underground. Biding their time.