Over feeding your worms is a common reason for having ants in a wormery, so removing excess food and ensuring the worms are healthy is the first step towards getting rid of ants. I will also give you other reasons as to why you may have ants in the first place, as well telling you my 3 top tactics for how to get rid of them and preventative measures against future invasions.
Lets First Understand Why We Have Ants In Our Wormery
As mentioned above, the main reason for ants invading your wormery is normally due to food, and your worm farm can be an easy target for them. With regular food being added they are in heaven if they can setup shop right inside the wormery. The ants will eat a wide range of foods but their favourite type of foods are ones with a high sugar content. I always think of ants munching on an ice lolly that has been dropped by a small child, it never takes long for them to find it and I always wonder where they have come from.
If ants are taking advantage of the food then it is likely that you are over feeding the worms and the ants noticed the extra food and moved in. Once in however they are then in direct competition for food with the worms and will mean your worm tribe leading to malnurishment. So it’s best to get rid of the little critters
Another reason for ants gravitating towards your wromery could be that the bedding is to dry and/or the enviroment is acidic. These are both faviourable conditions for ants and not so good for worms, so keeping an eye on you wormery health is important.
Removing ants from the wormery
There are a few different things to try but the fact is if you get rid of the queen then the rest will go. The queen of an ant colony is what keeps it alive because it is she that produces the eggs for future ants and her alone. None of the worker ant are in a position to produce eggs so the colony will only ever live as long as the lifespan of the workers after the queen has been removed. Likelyhood is however they will depart in search for the queen.
- So with that in mind you can get some gloves on and it should be fairly easy to isolate the ant nest, then dig throught the waste and compost to find and remove the queen. With a bit of luck it should be job done. Put the wormery back together and wait for the worker ants to leave.
- Another option is fork through the ant nest, exposing it as much as possible and letting in the light. Ants dont like this and should choose to leave the premises. If you are doing this then you may as well keep your eyes open for the queen.
- It’s been reported that sprinkling the cinnamon in and around the ants is not something they enjoy because when they inhale it it causes them to suffocate. This wont harm your worms either, which is good to know.
- Likewise ants hate mint so adding handfuls of mint leaves in the wormery is worth a try and maybe combining with step 3 to make your own anti-ant cocktail.
Prevention is better than cure
That’s what is generally spouted about most things and it’s no different with ants in your wormery. If you can prevent them in the first place then you wont have the trouble of eliminating them.
To stop ants from enetering your wormery could try a few of these methods which I have found from surfing the web and they make sense so i’ll pass them on to you to try.
- Placing mint in, near or planting close to where you keep your setup to repel them.
- Using cinnamon oil mixed with water and spray around your wormery base if you suspect ant activity in the area.
- If your setup has legs, raising the worm unit off the ground then it makes sense to stand the legs in a pool of water. This will discourage and block access from climbing up the legs to get inside.