Ants and aphids. Who's milking who, and how do we stop it?
Question:Okay, this year my mom made a garden. There's a lot of plants including sunflowers. Now we've heard somewhere that aphids milk the ants, ants protect the aphids, and aphids eat the sunflowers. BUT we also heard that ants milk the APHIDS, and aphids eat the sunflowers. Which way is right? And what can we do to get rid of them??
Answers:
The ants are the one doing the milking ,you can get rid of them by putting dish soap an water in a spray boodle . this way it wont hurt the plant like most bug sprays.
Hope you get rid of them
Christianz
Ants milk the aphids. Put down some industrial pesticide and insecticide, then let neighborhood children play in the area.
Ants just like people are farmers. Some species of ants(some type of South American?) utilize aphids. Each morning they pull the aphids out of the colony on their backs and carry them to the plants, the ants protect them while the aphids feed, once an aphid puts its mouthpart into a plant the turgor pressure of the plant causes a sugary droplet to exude from the backside of the aphid which the ants collect and use for food.
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