Ants are frequent guests in garden plots. They bring both benefit and harm, so often gardeners and gardeners try to get rid of them in all possible ways. However, before you start a fight with them, it is worth finding out that ants have a lot of useful qualities. The value of an ant in nature is very large.
What are ants in the forest for?
Ant status in relation to the forest is very high. Even from school, everyone knows that it is impossible to ravage ant nests. These insects protected by the state and specially settled artificially in new places.
They even deserve the title of "ants forest nurses" for their benefit.
What are the benefits of forest ants? Ants settled in dead wood, accelerate its decomposition, thus freeing the forest from diseased specimens.
These insects are predators with omnivores. During the summer season, the inhabitants of the anthill free the forest from five million harmful insects. This amount frees up a hectare of forest. Of course, birds are also engaged in the destruction of pests, but ants cope with this task more fruitfully, approximately 20 times faster.
Ants are distributors seeds of many plants. By picking them up and dragging them home, he loses a piece on the way. So plants multiply throughout the forest area.
Like bees, ants are pollinators for flowers, eating sweet nectar.
Building their underground houses and paving numerous passages for their movement, they contribute to loosening the soil. That is why forest plants living above anthills, most actively develop. In addition to air permeability, the soil becomes more nutritious, enriched with organic matter and minerals.
Ants beneficial insects for songbirds. They take them inside and out. Ant shower helps birds get rid of parasites. Swimming in anthills, the birds put insects under the wings, crush them against feathers.
What is useful ants in the garden
Despite some damage from insects in the garden, they also have a number of positive properties.
They build their anthills at a depth of one and a half meters, thereby loosening the ground. The soil is mixed at a depth of 70 centimeters, lifting particles from the lower layers to the surface. At the same time the soil becomes friable, therefore, it is better to let air through, moisture. Plant roots in these conditions get more nutrition.
Ants increase the nutritional value of the soil, as their activity contributes to the removal of greenhouse gases from the earth. The soil treated with insects is enriched with minerals. The plot above the anthill is ideal for growing all garden crops.
Thus, the presence of black ants in the dacha - a sign of good soil quality. They prefer to live in a healthy, well-warmed land. But if they suddenly fled from your site, it means that something is wrong with him and you will most likely not be able to achieve good results in growing garden crops on it.
Insects actively destroy garden pests. Garden pests: caterpillars, worms, slugs - a real treat for them. Scientists have calculated that the inhabitants of one ant hill just in one day of summer kill about two thousand garden pests and their larvae.
Treatment
The healing properties of ants have been known for a long time. For centuries, people have made them tinctures, ointments. These insects are still used today. The main active ingredient in such preparations is formic acid.
Acid-based preparations help in the treatment of arthritis, rheumatic and atrophic, neurosis, dizziness in old age. They can also alleviate the condition of patients with hepatitis.
Ants are prepared preparations with a hemostatic effect. Their venom also contains antibiotics capable of fighting fungal and bacterial infections, including staphylococci and streptococci.
Before you destroy these little workers on their sites, evaluate the benefits they bring.
A photo
Next you will see a photo of how ants are used in nature:
Useful materials
Then you can get acquainted with articles that may be useful and interesting to you:
- Ant extermination:
- How to get rid of red ants in the apartment?
- Boric acid and borax from ants
- Folk remedies for ants in the apartment and house
- Rating of effective means of ants in the apartment
- Ant traps
- Ants in the garden:
- Species of ants
- How do ants hibernate?
- Who are the ants?
- What do ants eat?
- Hierarchy of ants: the king of the ant and the structural features of the working ant
- How do ants breed?
- Ants with wings
- Forest and garden ants, as well as the ant reaper
- How to get rid of ants in the garden?
