For anyone having problems with green ants AKA green tree ants, here is my solution which I have been using for many years.
I use Carbaryl insecticide in a garden sprayer to spray their nests and the other foliage and trunk on the same trees. It not only kills all the ants that are wet but other ants then collect the dead ants for whatever reason and thus spread the poison throughout their colonies.
After a few days, all ants are normally dead and the leaves forming the nest start to die and fall apart.
Whilst insect sprays such as Pea Beu will kill the green ants it contacts, it does not get spread throughout the colonies so the ants are back in the same spots shortly after.
I used to buy Yates and Hortico Carbaryl but both stopped producing it, and one advised it was still made by David Gray and Richgro.
Contrary to David Gray’s advice, their product is not stocked by Bunnings in Cairns but the Richgro product is. It is now called “Caterpillar, Grasshopper & Millipede Insecticide” and still contains the same active ingredient, 10g/L Carbaryl.
One of my wife’s sisters who lives in Northern NSW told her that there are apparently green ants everywhere in the Lismore region following recent floods and they are invading orchards.
One thing that has intrigued me about their nests is why the leaves stay alive and green whilst the nest is inhabited but quickly die after the ants are eradicated.
2 Likes
