Those poor little creatures get blamed for so many things! It’s not uncommon to hear that those pesky little ants have “eaten my tree, and now it’s dying!” It’s quite the opposite! Ants cannot actually “eat,” for they cannot chew or swallow solids. Instead, they suck out juices which they squeeze from pieces of food. Ants actually can and do wonderful things for us. They aerate the soil and their diet consists of things that eat trees and plants.

The biggest enemy to our trees (other than human beings) is fungi. Fungi thrives in dark, moist ar-eas. When a tree has a cavity inside, fungi will slowly eat up the wood, and that can become a big problem for the tree. Ants, on the other hand, are opportunists, and seek trees with this problem to set up a home. There, they work really hard and carry out the rotten fungi infested wood and make little baby bedding gal-leries for their young. Given time, a subdivision develops to house thousands in their community.

The beneficial side effect of this ant farm creates air movement inside the open wound area helping it to stay dry, thus making it unfavorable for fungi to thrive. The presence of ants is actually helping the tree, although seeing a colony living inside of your tree may be an indication of a more serious problem. Some fungal cavities may become so big that it detracts from the structural integrity of the tree, causing it to be-come unstable. In a nut shell, while ants are good in nature, they remain bad in your kitchen, and indicators of possibly larger problem in a tree.

Ruel Jones