little farmers

Ants have surprisingly clever methods of harvesting food, writes MARTYN ROBINSON

We’re all trying to get a piece of the action from our edible gardens. Next time you head out to pick lettuce from the patch, or collect eggs from the chook house, think about the many animals you share the garden with that are also looking for a way to get their hands on some home-grown goodness. These animals include ants.

Many ant species have been farming for thousands of years, specialising in different crops or ‘menu items’. Some harvest seeds to either feed on directly or supply to a fungus colony… so they can then eat the fungus.

There are also ants that guard and ‘milk’ the various insects that produce a nutritious sweet secretion, feeding on this substance rather than the insects themselves. In some butterfly species, it’s the caterpillar that produces edible secretions. Each night, the ants herd these caterpillars up trees to feed on mistletoe, then early in the morning, before birds and other predators are around, the ants herd the caterpillars back down the tree and into their nest, to keep their food providers safe.

Lots of ants also farm aphids, mealy bugs and scale insects. When you find these pests, you usually also find attendant ants, even on indoor plants. Some ants carry larval scale insects or mealy bugs to suitable plants and establish them there as a future food source. When house plants are infested with breeding scale insects or mealy bugs, along with attendant little black ants, you often see worker ants carrying off larval pests to nearby plants.

Any attempt to manually remove the pests is met with resistance by the ants – after all, it’s their crop of food that you’re trying to destroy!

So, when you collect eggs from your chooks or tomatoes from the patch, or try to outsmart possums before they eat fruit from your trees, remember that many of the ants around the place are similarly farming and harvesting.