4 Farmers’ Bulletin 1101. 
IMPORTANCE IN AGRICULTURE. 
The nurseryman, the trucker, and the orange grower are greatly 
molested by this pest, owing to the fondness of the ant for the honey- _ 
dew excreted by aphids and scale insects. The workers take the best 
possible care of these honeydew-yielding species, and protect them 
from their natural enemies, frequently building shelters over them, 
and as the host plants grow, carry the young scales and aphids and 
place them on the young tender growth, where they may more easily 
sap the juices of the plants. 
In corn, cotton, and sugar-cane fields, the Argentine ant when 
present is constantly attending the aphids and mealybugs, increasing 
the numbers of these species to an alarming degree, much to the det- 
riment of the plants. The writer estimates that a considerable loss 
of sugar results from the attendance of the Argentine ant on the 
sugar-cane mealybug. 
NESTING HABITS. 
Argentine ants are extremely social among their own kind, the 
individuals never having been observed to quarrel with one another, 
nor one colony with another. Workers may be carried for miles and 
placed with others of their kind and no apparent demonstrations of 
like or dislike are exhibited. The newcomers appear to enter into 
the colony spirit and are soon lost to the view of an observer. Any 
small nest will contain severa] queens which live together amicably. 
The summer nest may be located anywhere—under sidewalks, 
under the sills of houses, in brick piles, stone piles, under a piece of 
board or a piece of tin, in an old tin can—in fact, in any place con- 
venient to the food supply. In the winter months there is a tendency 
to concentrate into larger colonies, and they seek warm, dry, secure 
nesting places in which to hibernate. These desirable places are not 
plentiful, and where one is located the ants from some distance will 
seek its shelter. The winter is the most hazardous period of the year, 
for should a nest by any chance be flooded during a cold spell, when 
the ants are dormant, the chances of survival of the colony would be 
extremely slight. Usually throughout the latter part of December, 
January, and February (at New Orleans) these large colonies are 
found. They sometimes reach very extensive proportions and may 
contain several hundred queens and countless workers and immature 
stages. These colonies are usually located at the base of large trees 
on high, well-drained spots of ground, in manure piles, or in any 
other piles of decomposing rubbish where heat is generated. A 
warm day will make them particularly active, and they will form 
trails in all directions from these winter nests to food supplies. They 
may be observed traversing the trunks of trees every warm winter 
