Black or white?

Share your success stories about defoliation, bare rooting and anything else relating to maintaining healthy bonsai.
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MattA
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Black or white?

Post by MattA »

I was checking one of my trees in the ground today & got a little excited on seeing a telltale trail. (I have followed it with an orange line to make it easier to see)
antline1.jpg
It goes up & round the front of a branch & over into a rotten hollow that has formed since being chopped many many years ago.
antline2.jpg
Finding a spot in the antworks to break the shell & check, sure enough its white ants...
antline3.jpg
On finding them most would be rushing for the pest control, not I, they will only eat deadwood & not affect the overall health of the tree. In general I have found white ants will go for harder woods, while black ants will take up home in soft woods that suffer from dry rot. Ths is a sample of the handy work of black ants on an ash tree I collected a few years ago.
antwork.jpg
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Re: Black or white?

Post by kcpoole »

Cool :-) Natures own carving tools :lol:
so long as they do not eat the house you are gold :-)
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MattA
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Re: Black or white?

Post by MattA »

Plenty of timber in the yard for the buggers to eat and check the house stumps regularly for trails...if found they are hit with the hard stuff before they get a hold. :tu2:

White ants always build a protective tunnel to connect them with the earth. Black ants move into existing gaps & hollow the insides without breaking the outer edges of timber. These differ from black ants that feed & farm scales etc.
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Re: Black or white?

Post by krittas »

Your a brave man. imagine what you could do with those borer bugs from europe...id be still worried about having white ants near anything to do with timber...lol
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