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Re: ants

Sal Schettino wrote:
>
> I think Boric Acid will kill bees and there are not that many left.
> what some folks do is put the boric acid in a jar with a lid with holes
> in it so the ants can go in and get the boric acid and the bees cann't.
>
        Only thing wrong with that is that it doesn't work very well. Ants
aren't real likely to crawl into a jar of dry powder when there is a
lovely garden nearby full of aphids that want tending. Putting a small
amount of boric acid around the edges of the ant bed or across one of
their paths will not kill a single bee. After the ants have walked
across it a few hours you go out and wet it down. Wetted boric acid
won't kill anything.
        As a beekeeper I know about the Mites that have killed most of the
feral Honeybees. I know that the cultivated Honeybees are largely not
affected. And I know that Honeybees account for less than 10% of
pollination, that they are imported animals, and that the natural
swarming of the cultivated hives will re-establish the feral population
in a year or two.
        The folly of most hysterical Organic Gardeners and Ecologists is based
on a mis-apprehension of the dynamics of nature. Most think of the
ecological balance as if it were a pencil balanced on it's erasor, where
a little push will throw it off completely and only relatively massive
effort will set it right again.
        In fact the balance of nature is like a pencil dangling from your
fingertips. A little push will make it swing, but it has a tendency to
fall back to it proper position without further intervention.
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