That's the type of comment that are so valuable.
Yeah, aphids are always be fascinating to me, ants also cultivate mushrooms, did you know that?
I will have a look into pyrol, if it's available in the area. Well, after your comment, I will work extra hard on these aphids.
As I was saying in the post, I think I found the reason why I got so many aphids in such a short amount of time. Long story short, I was a bit jealous seeing all the neighbours beans growing so fast (knowing they are using a local variety whereas I chose a Dutch strain), so I boosted the plants with a Nitrogen mix (organic).
Nitrogen tends to attract more aphids as the sap is extra sweet now, so I am not surprised the ants got a feast out of it.
That was such a great convo, I will check out your blog and thanks to Lotus of course!
Hi Edprivat
You are most welcome. I do remember learning about the underground fungus chambers that some ants cultivate, I find it fascinating. To be honest I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with ants. I know they are extremely valuable in the ecosystem for a variety of ecological services but sometimes they behave like such little sh*ts. We have some interesting ones here in the little Karoo, this one is rather large (about 2cm) and they are called Karoo Balbyters - the English translation Karoo Ball Biters, so yeah, they have a reputation hahaha.
Have a great weekend :)
OOOh fascinating, are they the army ants? A bit larger than the average and moving in group of 5 or 6? I imagine why they called ball biters hahaha