Ants prospered during the mild winter and are enjoying my Mewai kumquats. They have eaten a small hole in the top of numerous quats but only one quat per cluster.

Has anyone encountered this?

Should Imidacloprid cure this?

What do you recommend?

Apparently the nice ant hills (soil banks) I built looked very inviting to some ants as several are now inhabited. I guess the non Winter we had encouraged this.

What is my best course of action?

I would like to remove the soil banks but he thought of scattering ants every where has me concerned.

I don't really care about the ants as long as they don't harm the fruit but they are crossing the line attacking the Quats and I assume the would be doing this on any citrus that was present in the garden so unless someone convinces me otherwise they have to go!

I would encourage you to try an Amdro type ant bait. It has worked good for me but it doesn't last forever so you need to put bait out as necessary but still better than using poison directly on fruit that might be ready to eat before the poison is gone......Tom

I am not familiar with the type of ants you have in Florida. Here in Colorado we have the common red ants. My guys as they pass by ant hills, take a shovel full from two different ant hills, and place a shovel full from one ant hill and put it on the other ant hill. Ants being very territorial fight each other to the death. This is a rather our common practice around here, and it seems to pretty much keep them under control. - Millet (349 ABo-)

More than likely fire ants. I would also go with Amdro.

I don't think these are fire ants. They are about 3/16 inch long and solid black. They did not seem overly agitated when I thumbed the kumquat they where on.

I might have some Amdro I'll check.

Whatever type of ants they are, GET RID OF THEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. They will farm the aphids and other pests to harvest their poo. They are a major problem. Spray the tree to kill them and put up tanglefoot on the trunk of each tree. Also make sure no branches touch the ground.

Here is a great vid on youtube about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dLyJJxbEV8

Just be sure to kill the ants in the tree before putting on the tanglefoot.

My patch of dirt might just qualify as an ant farm - dozens of species and everywhere. I used Tanglefoot last year, seemed to work well enough, messy as heck though - wear disposable gloves and long sleeved shirt you don't care about. Will also try the "Ant Wars" method, serves 'em right.

Tanglefoot works well, but be sure to put some paper up first, then paint the Tanglefoot on the paper, and not directly on the trunk. If it gets hot enough, as it can in Florida, the Tanglefoot will heat up and damage the cambium layer.

I use this as a foliar spray all the time.

Thanks all,

I think I'll try a threefold approach. I'll first try the territorial ant warfare, then after the carnage settles I'll use the Amdro and Spectracide.

After noticing lots of aphids and their ant cowboys doing the ranching/herding work with them on new citrus leaves, I snuggly wrapped a strip of sticky masking tape around a smooth, round area of lower trunk with the sticky side facing future feet. By the next day there were a couple dozen ant cowboys stuck on the tape with green, living aphids in the ants' jaws. After rinsing off the bugs already on the leaves, this served to keep out replacements. After a week or 3, the no-longer-sticky tape can be replaced with a new strip. One inch wide may catch fewer bugs, but makes it easier to free baby lizards that may be found on the tape during the morning trap-checking.