Question
Flying ants came out of mulch and entered bradford pears. I noticed wood peckers have drilled holes all over.  I had orkin pest control come out to identify the ant.  They told me they couldn't do anything for inside just spray outside.  I need to know what I could put down so that it could go up inside the  cavity of tree.  I'm afraid that the tree will rot.
Thank you so much for your help.

Answer
The ants are taking advantage of a tree that has decayed wood in it. Decay fungi enter through wounds in the bark and will over time decay the wood on the inside of a tree trunk. Decay fungi will not harm the living cells and therefore are not a severe health problem to the tree. They can however over many years decay up the trunk into the limbs and weaken the branches and may cause the branch to break during a wind storm. You can tell if this is the case by the broken branch being hollow or the wood soft. fertilizing the tree with 10-10-10 fertilizer at the rate of 1 lb per inch of trunk diameter scattered around the tree and watered in good will increase the trees health. Apply just before a rain storm and you will not need to water.

Ants can be controlled by the use of ant bait insecticides. These are used for fire ants but will work on most ants.


Apply ant bait around the tree.
Baits take advantage of the foraging habits of the fire ants and are not to be confused with granular forms of insecticides. Baiting works in a very similar fashion. The bait is carried by workers back to the colony and fed to other ants, including the queen. It works much slower than granular insecticides. Baits work differently, too, in that they do not use insecticides to poison the colony, but work slowly by affecting the queen抯 reproductive ability. The colony will still have workers running around, but no new ants will be born to replenish the population. Eventually the colony dies off, as the ants die from natural causes or from their own short life span.


You should also avoid disturbing mounds when broadcasting. This will cause the foragers to flee back to the mound to protect the queen, and they will usually move the colony rather than carry the food back to the nest.

Some common bait products are: Extinguish Professional Fire Ant Bait; GardenTech Over 'n Out! Fire Ant Killer Mound Treatment; Amdro Ant Block Home Perimeter Ant Bait; Green Light Fire Ant Control with Conserve; Ferti-Lome Come and Get It; Amdro Fire Ant Bait or Amdro Pro; Extinguish Plus Fire Ant Bait; and Spectracide Fire Ant Killer Plus Preventer Bait Once & Done.

Bait treatments are an excellent way to treat entire communities. Baiting can be much more cost effective than other methods, can lower the frequency of applications, and is less toxic to the environment.