[Trebor]

I did a bit of hand weeding at the weekend and unearthed an ant nest. What’s the general view on ants in the allotment, should I leave them or ‘encourage’ them to leave? From what I have read they seem to get rid of bugs, but also farm aphids - they are in with the beans at the moment.

[Lardman]

As you say they farm aphids and kill ladybirds.

Im not a big fan of them - I have lots of red ant here, I disturb them as much as possible as often as possible in the hope they will move on.

[woodburner]

Bob Floweredew did a little experiment and fed them some jam, they then stopped farming the aphids and ate them instead!
As they have already spread the aphids around, you have nothing to lose by trying to get them to kill them off again! 

[Greengirl]

Tried the jam experiment last year putting a blob of jam (home made blackcurrant I might add) on a leaf above a colony of ants on my broad bean plants & it worked amazingly. The ants ate the sugar instead of farming the blackfly & then ate the blackfly. Only trouble is you look a right prat spreading jam on your plants & rain washes it off.

[HLS]

Can you just put blobs of jam on the ground, or do you have to spread it on the leaves?  I had loads of aphids last year (and not a ladybird in sight, sadly), so I'm all in favour of anything that'll convince ants to get the aphids off for me.  I'm tempted to ask whether  there's anything that'll get them to do the weeding, as well...

[Greengirl]

I think the idea is to put the jam above any colonies of blackfly that the ants are already farming, so that they presumably think that the blob of jam is a better honeydew producer than the blackfly & they will then destroy the blackfly to protect the jam. Don't think it would work on the ground - it may even encourage more ants I suppose.

Ants are supposed to be intelligent, so maybe you could train 'em to do the weeding!

[David.]

Their nests can be a real pain when built inside cold frames or under polythene mulch through which you're growing.

I take a Kelly kettle to the plot and use nothing more than a few twigs and some water to get rid of most of them, then use/mix parts of different mounds to fill hollows around the plot, hoping the compaction will finish the rest off, and that interaction between colonies will finish the job.

[iwantanallotment]

Apologies if obvious - but what do the twigs do, David?

[woodburner]

I'm guessing boil the kettle? 

[iwantanallotment]

Never thought of that, woodburner....course! 
I was thinking he'd poke 'em in the ground for the ants to climb up in mad fury, and then deal 'em a deathly blow 
Ray Mears I will never be 
Thanks for explaining.
Incidentally Trebor....my entire patch is riddled with ants, yet I found they didn't affect any crop other than the broad beans, ie encouraging blackfly.  I just pinched off the tips (yummy steamed with butter on!) and dotted jam on leaves, as others have said.
For my other crops(including runners & Borlotti), the ants had no effect and didn't disturb them at all.
Just my own experience.

[FCG]

If you want to get rid of a particularly bad ant nest organically light a fire on top of it and then let it die down on a dry day. Dig it up until you reach a 'moist' level and then repeat. This was quite a nifty trick taught to me.

[Trebor]

OK, thanks for all the suggestions. (As it is year 1 for me then I am going to risk leaving them alone for now. If they cause a problem then I will move onto the jam.)

[coo!]

i thought they were good for the ground? i'ld leave em i think