Question
I just bought 3 Petunias, 1 Dahlia and a Potato plant(in an diffrent area) on 9/28/08 and I had a butterfly feeder with suger water and cantalope leaning against my flag pole. Well ants found it and are all in the butterfly feeder and on the 4 flowers below the flag pole wich are causing them to droop and die fast so can you please tell me how to get rid of the ants but not still keep trying to attract butterflies.

Answer
Use one of the ant baits. This will be eaten by the ants and not efect butterflies. For many ant species, baits are the best management tactic because the entire colony is destroyed. This results in a more permanent solution to their ant problem. In addition, many baits have low toxicity to people and pets.

The trick to using baits is to make sure that the offending ants find the bait, eat it voraciously and take it back to the nest to the queen. If residual insecticide sprays are used, the foraging ants may die before they feed or take the bait back to the next, counteracting the effectiveness of the bait. Do not use insecticide sprays if you want to bait for ant control. If the bait is attractive to the ants, the entire colony will be destroyed within a few weeks. No insecticide sprays will be necessary!

The following baits are registered for ant control:

Terro?(OTC) | gel | boric acid/sugars
Pic?liquid (OTC) | gel | boric acid/sugars
Drax?Ant Kil Gel (PRO) | gel | boric acid/sugars/apple/mint (sugar-feeding ants)
Drax?FP (PRO) | gel | boric acid with peanut butter/oil (protein and grease-feeding ants)
MAXFORCE | gel, granules | hydramethylnon
Check with your local nursery for these baits.