A mound of dirt popped up in the middle of our yard overnight. Ants. We were told if we fumigated them we would be able to see pillars of smoke rise out of the ground all over our 2 1/2 acre yard. Our best course of action was to find the queen. Daunting for us, but old hat for our gardener:
First a hole was dug down approx four feet deep and four six feet wide.
Here Jonas helps pick through some of the hive. The boy is all curiosity.
Once
the queen was removed, the hive was moved to another part of the yard.
Then hot ash was spread in the hole and new soil was put in to replace
the old.
The white thing is the queen! Here she sits in a bucket with pieces of the hive
around her. Sorry we don't have something better to provide scale next
to it. It was huge- as long as our fingers.
The white part is the back end of the queen (who does not need to walk- she just needs to have food brought to her so she can breed) and you can see her head and arms in front. So gross. We promptly put her in a container, popped her in my purse, and carried her to school for Kurt's students to see. Jonas was tickled.
