Can you believe what the wee wee ants are doing on our farm?  We have one soursop tree here and the ants are systematically peeling the skins off the fruit.  They leave the fruit whole and intact like this…you have to catch them before they go splattt!!

Here are some that I have rescued with a few holes on them.  Look closely and you will see the ants crawling all over them.

I have written about these ants before but just in case you missed it here is a brief recap:

These leaf cutter ants (wee wee ants) usually form mounds above ground which lead down to their underground cities.  I call them “cities” because these nests can grow to 100 ft (30m) across with smaller radiating mounds growing to about 260ft (80m) and can house eight million ants.  Amazing!!

They cultivate a fungus by feeding it with fresh cut plant material (ie. all our lovely plants and trees).  Furthermore, these ants carry a bacterium which protects the fungi from pests and molds.  This is a really nice symbiotic relationship…sometimes you wish that us humans could form a better mutualistic relatiionship with the planet in the same way as these ants!  The fungus is used to feed the ant larvae.

We have tried all sorts of ways to get rid of them and alas, have even resorted to ritualistic practice, dancing, singing and talking (nicely) to them.  None of it works!!  What to do…

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