What are these tiny ants?

I am getting tiny, tiny black ants on my alocas. There don't seem to be any on the leaves, just the stems. They don't seem to be hurting the plant in any way, but it bothers me that one plant is by my bed and I can envision waking up with them in my hair.

Thanks for any info.

Hap

I suggest you inspect the underside of the leaves for almost invisible light green scale insects. I've seen them around and they are usually on the underside of the leaves, right at the junction of the main veins (the "y"). Ants like to farm them for honeydew; they also like to farm aphids on some of my Alocasias. So the ants will go up and down the petioles of the leaves, checking up on their "herd" and milking them occasionally.

LariAnn

Oh dear, LariAnn!!! A herd of ants???


Just checked and the scales there, but just a few.

How do I get rid of them or do I just let them Roam the Range?

Nancy

Edit.....PS I have Bayers 3 in1.. Will that work?

This message was edited Oct 5, 2010 9:26 AM

Nancy,

If you have just a few scales, you can remove them by hand-squishing or with a Q-tip moistened in rubbing alcohol. Once the scales are cleaned off, the ants won't have anything to farm and thus no reason to stick around. Make sure you do a thorough job as some of the scales might be quite small and easily overlooked. You will have to keep an eye out to insure that the ants don't bring in some other "livestock" from another location to your newly cleaned pasture!

Scales are not on the Bayer 3 in 1 label, so I can't recommend it for the scales. However, it is good to have around in case of mites, which are on the label.

LariAnn

Thanks, LariAnn. Will do.