Praise for the Common Ant # 1

Five years ago, I found an ant's nest at the rear of my backyard. My immediate inclination was to get the bag of Ortho Ant Killer and pour large amounts of granules down the ant hole. But they were located far from the house, not doing any damage, so I decided to take a wait-and-see attitude. If the beasts entered my kitchen or attacked my apple tree, I would annihilate them. Otherwise, I would let them be.

A few weeks later, I noticed the ants again. I was in the yard checking plants about 8 a.m. in late May. I started watering the Bougainvillea when I saw streams of ants marching north from the ant hole  Not a few ants but an army of ants. A couple of brave souls led the parade but many, many ants followed. All were headed north. I saw no ants travel back to the hole and none held anything in its mandibles. They all just marched on their little legs across my yard, steadfastly north.

A 5 foot wall surrounds my yard and when they reached the edge of the yard, these tiny creatures climbed the wall. They just rolled over that 5 foot wall and  into my front yard. Where in the world were they going? Why the long trek from the rear of my yard, over the wall and into my front yard?

I went around to the front to investigate.

The Acacia tree. That's where they were headed. In my front yard, I picked up their trail and followed them to my Cat Claw Acacia tree.

The ants were climbing up and down the trunk, up and down the branches then disappearing under a bricked area next to the tree.

I Googled the situation and discovered that ants and acacia trees have long had a symbiotic relationship. Ants have taken over a defense role, protecting the acacia from herbivores and pruning away competing plants. In return, the tree supplies the ants with protein from its leaflet tips and carbohydrate-rich nectar from glands on its leaf stalk.

Okay. The ants can stay. Every morning I watched the ants make their way from the hole, over the wall, across the gravel in my front yard to their new colony under the bricks.

As soon as the weather cooled, the ants disappeared. Hibernating, I supposed. However, they didn't reappear the next spring. I missed them but, hey, que sera sera. I took the rake to the ant hole and smoothed it out, virtually making all remembrances of the traveling visitors disappear.

Year three, there was some activity with the ant hole. I told Jim I might have new tenants. I had seen some ants cleaning out the hole. I didn't hold my breath but was hoping I might have another summer of traveling ants.

It was not to be.

New ants had moved into the old apartment all right but these ants were much bigger and they didn't send homesteaders over the wall. They seemed more interested in architecture than travel. Early in the morning, ants struggled up the steep sides of the hole, each carrying one grain of gravel to a location where it wouldn't roll back down. Each ant placed his one grain in its perfect place then returned down the hole -  to pick up another grain, I assumed.

What patience!

But it paid off. Soon the hill was high and rounded. And I hoped the inside of the apartment met with their approval.

I watched other members of the colony struggling with a seed or some morsel two, three times as big as they were, dragging their treasures to home base. When they tried to maneuver their finds up and over the hill into the apartment, the ants resembled drunken carousers, leaning this way and that, trying to negotiate the item into the hole. 

One guy's prize was too big to fit. He had made it all the way across my back yard, had bested the pile of sand but couldn't fit the kernel into the hole. He gave up and went off to other adventures. Of course, his prize blocked other work that needed to be done. Soon two other ants were onto the problem. They pushed and pulled but no success. Then a few more ants appeared. These chaps started whittling away at the kernel and eventually, after a long time working, it slid into the hole.

Amazing!