The nightmare I've been going through! - Ants colonising my Orchid pots 😖

[@MissOrchidGirl]

wow same t-shirt as when I first filmed them last year.. coincidence? I think not! I just don't have many clothes 🤭

[@pencilshavings8518]

I was rooting for the ants! i jest

[@BrandNewCherrelle]

‘If she(Queen ant) wants to take revenge, jokes on her. I’m moving out’ 😂😂

[@SteveG1960]

Hi Dani. I live in Florida, and many of my orchids live in pots outside. When I discover ants in my pots add a few lemon rind slices and the ants leave.

[@writethepath8354]

I live southeast coast USA, fire ants are brutal

[@jomo9454]

They do look like fire ants. It explains the painful welts they're giving her. Poisoning some dog food or crickets would probably take care of it, or maybe specific fire ant bait.

[@YRMYPPPT]

Same, we flush the nests with a soapy concoction till they move far enough away from the house.. best we can do.. 🤣🤣

[@writethepath8354]

@YRMYPPPT yep, it's make somewhere else more appealing, or make the current place inhospitable

[@mwmranch]

I was bitten on my leg by a fire in 2003 and I still have a black scar from it...they're brutal. I'm dealing with carpenter ants right now and that hasn't been fun either.

[@valariecarey2716]

I learn so much from your videos, Thank You for sharing the good, bad and yucky!!! Sorry you're dealing with this but it's a lesson for all of us growers. You're a Gem!

[@wandashaw3551]

Hi Dani, I am so sorry you are having to deal with this situation. I personally have no patience for crawlers, so I do try to eradicate them if I can. I just cannot stand to see them crawling, ICK. Hopefully you have gotten them out of your spaces, fingers crossed!

[@Laurent-o2t]

Ants hate the smell of lemon, especially when they are ripe. Spray water containing squeezed lemon on your pots.

[@mewdar]

I just put pieces of lemon peel on top of the pot.

[@donnawaldron2880]

I had one orchids that was overrun with ants. I soaked and flushed with water forever! I finally had my pest control guy bring industrial strength ant bait and sprinkle granular poison all around my house. I haven’t seen any lately but I keep checking and deep soaking the pots all the way up to the rims.

[@Lucy-zp2rz]

Hi Dani, have you trying Epson salt? I just added a little salt in the water. A guy who works at a pest control company said I should I should leave a little borax they can walk on it. He said to use it expectantly near the doors or where it is walking. It works for cockroaches too.

[@roslynbarclay1000]

This Spring/Summer my shade house was full of ants for the first time. I kept a sprayer of natural oil repellant handy & sprayed the wire shelves, plus on top of worst pots. It vastly reduced the number. I also used a repellent powder around & on top of media. It’s supposed to break the scent path they follow. I was sick of ants getting on me & biting even though it wasn’t as bad as yours. They disappeared when the cold weather arrived.

[@baltschoolofdance]

Hi Danni! I’m the same. I don’t like to kill anything if I don’t have to-except anything parasitic like mosquitoes, ticks, etc. Ants are nature’s clean up crew so I don’t like to kill them BUT when they come inside and start farming mealy bugs, scale, and aphids. Then I’m done and it’s war! Then I put out baits. Terro is my favorite bait of choice.

[@shaurifairy]

I had them coming into my house and going to 1 of orchids, and they were only attracted to one od my orchids, not sure why but i started groeing mint around the foundation of my house to keep ants away, they did not return this year

[@melissastoeger8531]

I had one of my phals on my patio for a few days and when I brought it back in, I didn’t realize that it came back with ants. It took me a while to figure out that’s where all the ants were coming from and I immediately dumped the medium and flushed the plant. Fortunately I caught it before it got out of control and my Phal seems to be ok.

[@Mari-anneC]

I have also placed a dish of water and put the pot on something to raise it above the water and the ants won’t cross the water.

[@haleybee123]

Would keeping carnivorous plants near these other plants help to reduce the problem? I keep carnivorous in my house and outside to try and reduce bugs and I do think it helps but I don’t know if it’s just me being hopeful. I love the idea of being able to feed plants with our “pests”!

[@catherinemccormick6002]

I had ants on my indoor orchids last year, I put them on an upturned bowl in the middle of a roasting tin of water and put an ant trap / poison thing on the pot. Did the trick.

[@asymonna]

I feel you girl, I had similar problem few days ago but maybe in that big scale I moved some of my orchids outside to the greenhouse and few days later ants started to be interested in them, especially one of the dendrobiums. And yes, they were preparing to colonise the whole pot. And gladly I took some action the very next day. And after removing all the ants, soaking pot in the water and flushing them - I placed all the pots on trays filled with water. They can't swim so they won't climb to get inside. I also left them a nice (poisonous) surprise so hopefully they'll learn not to mess with me. Good luck with your battle! 💪

[@BeardPoseidon]

I like ants on the ones I have outside, help with pests, fertilize the orchids. They’re not farming anything on them. The relationship with Myrmecophila is cool.

[@Mr.Dorsey78]

Oh Man I can feel them crawling on me, while watching this video. I almost had to stop watching.. I'm glad you were able to get rid of them & hopefully they stay gone....

[@bethnoirable]

What an awful experience! I totally relate to not wanting to kill anything, I can't bring myself to get rid of the pest snails in my aquarium even though they're eating my plants. But you did what you had to do, ants are different, especially when they are biting you all the time.

[@JamesDumas-b1x]

Southwest Oregon and they're a pain in the ass, especially if they bite you there. I've had them colonize plants and it sucks. you're very lucky you can't have a family of raccoons living under your house.

[@rabatjoietv]

Here in France on my balcony when I have few ants I use the green box or the gel in tube, both are the same poison. But I prefer the gel, I can put drops where I want. You can even use your green box to drop the gel inside. With the gel in tube one have to be carefull if one have animals. Here it works well, ants are poisonned and bring it to contaminate the others :)

[@shravanihazra779]

Thank you so much for this post. This year I lost many Cattleyas, Phalaenopsis and Oncidiums to ants 😒.

[@annashow200]

Literally, just last week I found an ant infestation in one of my orchids … I repotted ( hopefully I didn’t kill my orchids) mine were tiny and yes, there was a queen..

[@ruthrobertson6301]

Vinegar and lavender spray with detour the ants is what I found to work to stop trail into house after the food. I only have 1 orchard, start of 3 rd year and no flower stock, so far.

[@Meskarune]

I've had orchid pots get ants twice now. The queen flies up and starts a colony. If you stop watering for a while they move the colony somewhere else.

[@arci1203]

You need to protect it with water. I know it might be difficult to protect all of them with water specially because orchids don’t like wet feet, but if you put a little water around the orchid the ants won’t cross it… that’s what I usually do when they grow fond of one of my plants, I put water in their little dish, if it’s and orchid I will raise it and and surround it water. You just have so many of them 😅 I don’t know if it’s possible.

[@Carol-l5r]

My husband swells up 2-3” inches, I just asked him if it’s itchy, it is. From Ants in the yard. The one thing he has found works for a little while is he sprays Vinegar around the area he is to work on, it seems to confuse them. He uses it Especially around areas he has been bit before. We just found out when I bought a new bottle of hydrogen peroxide that it relieves itching and reduces swelling from Ants and other creatures. We get 3 types of Ants here. He also dresses so no skin is exposed when outside cutting down a tree we have. He looks silly but it also works. I hope something works for you ❤ Carol

[@sarahkahler3312]

Hi Dani, if the ants like sweet stuff , make a simple syrup with sugar and water and add some borax. Put it out in shallow lids. They’ll take that back to the nest and it will kill them all!

[@holleyo.5083]

That definitely works but she mentioned borax is banned in the uk

[@luanne8062]

. . . you go girl!! Get em!

[@deedeewieland4005]

Oh, I've had that happen twice! Terro ant traps work wonders!

[@cutebloons]

Poor Danny! 🥺

[@sparkyjoes]

I brought home a Sharry Baby from a local enthusiast and it came with ants. Fortunately it wasn’t a whole colony but it was still annoying.

[@angiebarnston6946]

I hate them!! I had an infestation, I still have them in my apartment 😭😭😭😭😭

[@annar6430]

I live in Jamaica, I kicked over a Mad Ant nest itching and swelling, scratching for a week

[@90skid97]

I suddenly had hundreds of ants in my windowsill after maybe one or two days. They must have found a way into the house. Then bought an ant 'can', little round box with a glass lid. You dropped blue fluid into each side and by the end of the day all and were dead/gone. There must have been 30 ants at a time sucking from the blue sap. Beyond effective

[@katesmiles4208]

Ants love my lemon and my other citrus trees. It will be interesting if your idea about lemon juice works.

[@lindaolson8048]

Just went through an ant attack. It was horrible. In everything in my kitchen. Took days to get rid of them!!!!

[@DanielaDaniela-w3x]

Dacă chiar nu doriți să le omorâți puneți felii de mere sau ceva dulce în ghivece .Ele se vor aduna la zahăr și le trageti într-un aspirator manual și le aruncați afară .Dar nu e o idee prea bună să le aruncați afară pentru că se întorc .Din ce știu furnicile lasă un miros în urma lor și vin și altele după miros deci știu drumul .Nici mie nu îmi place să omor nici o insectă dar dacă preiau controlul nu avem ce face .Succes !

[@mikeylou5]

You need to declare all out war on the ants.

[@ionescuionut5041]

This is a sign that you should start looking up for having an ant farm lol 😂😂😂

[@joshualieberman2265]

TBH I think that is a species of ants that has multiple queens and multiple nest. I do not think moving that orchid to the other side of the greenhouse is far enough away. The ants will find their way back to that pot. Personally I think you are stuck with them until you move. When you move you will probably have to do a full repot on every orchid making sure every ant is out of every pot to start completely fresh. These ants are extremely hard to get rid of. I kind of recognize the genus (the species is probably different from what I have where I live but the queens looked very very similar). When colonies get as large as yours they tend to have 5+ queens with multiple satellite nest (typically 8-9). You probably have nest in multiple pots and unless you hit the entire room at once you will just end up playing a game of whack-a-mole because they will just jump from pot to pot. To make things worse even if you get them out of the room they likely have a satellite nest outside of your property so even if you get them all out of your greenhouse they will eventually find their way back in. I really think you are stuck with them until you move. Just make sure to repot every single orchid you have when you move because as you saw even soaking them for 24 hours was not enough to kill them because they found the 1 air pocket they could survive in and just came out when you repotted. Sadly being nice is not an option with these ants if you want them gone.

[@solarwinds-]

Ants are not a live and let live creature. If you see one, even one, it's time to act. They will take over. Year after year I'm still trying to figure out how to get rid of them. Give me the easy spider mites any day.

[@tropicalplantsfinland]

I have an agreement with nature (ants included). They don’t come indoors and I let them stay in peace outside. So no pesticides in my garden, indoors yes.

[@FerratheFerret]

As you are talking about the ants & looking at them, it makes me feel like there are ants on my body too 🫣

[@mariapeters9926]

O oh

[@carolgunn6527]

You need Terro ant baits. They do work. edited for spelling.

[@ronikreddy9478]

Aren’t ants good for the plant , ants kill the bugs and aerate the medium.

[@leahnichol6665]

I would say ‘No’. As Danni said, ant farm sucking bugs. Here in the Pacific Northwest they mainly farm aphids. They make a complete mess. If they are outside in the garden, perhaps we could get along. Not on my balcony and especially not in the house.

[@LifeofKusa]

ants for my nepenthes

[@ramonafrances4364]

Please talk to an ant specialist (or entomologist) particularly if a person is associated with a university as opposed to someone in business to rid them. I heard several misinformed comments (no disrespect intended) regarding ants (not orchids) You must learn to separate your bug bias from practical, balanced and factual information based on ant research & behaviors. Too many people rely on your information to get it so wrong. Please.

[@MissOrchidGirl]

What aspect of the topic are you referring to in particular? Did I say something inaccurate?