Fire Ants

[oddzy]

cockroaches, fire ants, mosquitos and africanized bees are all on the list of creatures i don't like. big river/sewer rats are nasty, too.

be very nice so that your karma doesn't have you reborn as any of those around me.

btw, does anyone else remember that cheesy scifi movie about the killer bees that ends up with a bee-covered volkswagon driving into the superdome with the a/c cranked on high?

[AAFitz]

As for bees... if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone, really and truly.

African Killer Bees won't. They are insane. They're quicker to attack, attack in greater numbers and chase you for longer.

True, and sadly, they, too are moving up north here.

I forgot about them. However, I have heard that even they are not quite as bad as some of the stories. That is, they can cause an adult a lot of pain, but are unlikely to kill anyone not allergic, at least if medical help is anywhere nearby. (Still, they are nasty, just not the deadly menace some reports would have us believe).

this is perhaps off topic, but they are actually being controlled via man made/natural selection. The most aggressive of the hives get destroyed, and the more passive evade detection, so the less aggressive tend to survive and pass those traits on. That being said, they are still without a doubt moving northward, and while originally it was thought they could not survive the cold of the north, they are able to cope with it in much the same way as european honeybees do, especially since they are a cross breed and continually crossbreed with existing european nests along the way.

As a scary thought, I have had bee keepers around here suggest they think the bees have become more aggressive, even in the north, but, it could very much be more their perception, or the other environmental changes which if making their lives harder, could very much make them more aggressive. Further, since so many die, its at least reasonable to think that perhaps the most passive would die first. This is just based on a few conversations though, and more pondering on the subject, but it does seem to make sense enough to consider I would think.

The stings are in fact no greater than a regular bee, and less than most, but they never stop chasing and attack in such great numbers, you just dont want to be around for it. It was thought theyd stop pursuing after 1/4 mile, but theyve shown they will pursue up to a mile, and perhaps more...they guy just got sick of walking to see if theyd ever stop.

[AAFitz]

cockroaches, fire ants, mosquitos and africanized bees are all on the list of creatures i don't like. big river/sewer rats are nasty, too.

be very nice so that your karma doesn't have you reborn as any of those around me.

btw, does anyone else remember that cheesy scifi movie about the killer bees that ends up with a bee-covered volkswagon driving into the superdome with the a/c cranked on high?

there was that one, and the one with micheal caine that was produced to be a serious blockbuster, but ended up as a comedy as people in the theaters started laughing at the scene where the kid saw the giant bee in his hospital room....presumably because they gave him lsd instead of morphine i guess.

[AAFitz]

As for bees... if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone, really and truly.

African Killer Bees won't. They are insane. They're quicker to attack, attack in greater numbers and chase you for longer.

possibly forever. The old theory was 1/4 mile, a guy tested it and gave up after a mile from boredom perhaps. Granted, he was walking slowly and suited, so I would think someone running might lose them quicker...or die of course.

[AAFitz]

I dont love the idea of them, but I fear their 2 dimensional threat much less than the 3 dimensional threat of bees, not to mention the speed factor. No doubt you would not be ffing with every africanized bee colony you came in contact with...or perhaps you would f with all of them, but all of them would probably just mean the one.

I truly wanted to make a statement about hate=fear, but as I "hate" bees, I simply cannot. But since Im nearly positive I could outrun ants, and possibly not bees...If I had to choose, Ill pick dealing with the ants every day.

Now...as ridiculous as it sounds, I have to kill no doubt millions of regular ants every year, but when I have the chance, I give them every chance I can. Its silly without a doubt, but I simply try not to kill anything unless I have to. I just dont see the point in it.

Even watching a little ant tells us a lot about our world. They simply will never, ever, ever give up. They fight for queen and country until the bitter end, and want to live above all else, but will give it all up in a moments notice for the better of their race.

We can only strive to have the backbone of an ant or a bee for that matter...or, many other animals in the world.

There are ants, then there are fire ants. Fire ants are not native, for one (which along puts them in a "pest" category). They are also very destructive, unlike most other ants.

As for bees... if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone, really and truly. Also, realize that much of what you eat would not be around if it were not for bees, and that's not just the obvious fruits, etc. Cows eat clover that is polinated by bees, etc. There is a fungus that is threatening our entire countries' bee population, so I don't speak esoterically when I say we need to work harder to preserve bees.

I was speaking of africanized bees, not regular honeybees, which you can essentially keep as a pet if you dont annoy it. In arizona most colonies of bees are now at least partly africanized, and they are mostly immune to colony collapse disorder, unlike the european honeybee which suffers from fungus, an australian bee virus, pesticides, and genetic engineering all at once.

More importantly, I was not suggesting that we kill all bees especially regular honeybees, only that given the choice of fighting fire ants and africanized "killer" bees...Ill take my chances with the ants. Feel free to test which is worse on your own time, but Ill just say now...I told you so.

[PLAYER57832]

Feel free to test which is worse on your own time, but Ill just say now...I told you so.

No thank you. My experiences with fire ants were instructive enough on their own ... lol.

As for the rest, yes, the big question is the hybridization. As you noted, it does seem that they are calming down a bit, but it is just one more example of the havoc we wreak when we introduce even "small" changes to the environment. And, one very big reason why the poor state of biology and natural-systems type education is pretty poor.

[2dimes]

Sometimes it's good to introduce some plant or animal from elsewhere in many ways.

Cows, chickens, watermelon, grapes, chinese gooseberries, awesome! Dandylions, african bees, less awesome.

Isn't most of the food here something introduced from elsewhere. You'd be eating Bison (perhaps better than cow but that's another discussion.) and berries with a side of corn if there was not tonnes of things introduced to the enviroment of the Americas.

[PLAYER57832]

Sometimes it's good to introduce some plant or animal from elsewhere in many ways.

Cows, chickens, watermelon, grapes, chinese gooseberries, awesome! Dandylions, african bees, less awesome.

Isn't most of the food here something introduced from elsewhere. You'd be eating Bison (perhaps better than cow but that's another discussion.) and berries with a side of corn if there was not tonnes of things introduced to the enviroment of the Americas.

Well.. this is a pretty complex topic. The short answer is that those species you mentioned have wreaked a lot of havoc, though a lot of that was before we understood that such things matter.

As for the rest, yes. Sometimes trade is a wonderful thing. Bananas, ironically enough, are often a more carbon-neutral choice than, say apples, because they are often brought by barge and apples are more often trucked. (though if the bananas are barged, then trucked...).

The big thing is to actually think about impacts and not just make "surface" judgements based on the "latest hype". Beyond that, a general rule, but definitely not absolute, is that the more local your food, the better for all. You get fresher stuff, sustain the local economy, etc, etc. But, again, that is definitely not absolute.

I can get into this topic a great deal, but I am not sure you really want that (lol).

[oddzy]

but think of the political havoc bananas have wreaked!!! you know, the united fruit company and all of that.

[2dimes]

One of the things that has completely changed most of your country is something I had heard was here before just not in the volumes it is now, the corn. The US&A used to be plains and prarie, a substantial portion is now corn. bk barunt says you can't get the toothpaste back in the tube. Some people say now that the place has been tilled it can't return to what it was. Guess we wait for the asteroid huh?

The barge stops about twice as far from me as the orchards, so yeah...

[jonesthecurl]

Sometimes it's good to introduce some plant or animal from elsewhere in many ways.

Cows, chickens, watermelon, grapes, chinese gooseberries, awesome! Dandylions, african bees, less awesome.

Isn't most of the food here something introduced from elsewhere. You'd be eating Bison (perhaps better than cow but that's another discussion.) and berries with a side of corn if there was not tonnes of things introduced to the enviroment of the Americas.

And vice versa. Many of the world's "standard foods" are of New World origin. Tomato, potato, corn, chili, turkey just to mention the most obvious.
I do like bison.

[daddy1gringo]

Anybody ever read the short story, "Leningen Versus the Ants"?
Link: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lvta.html

[b.k. barunt]

One of the things that has completely changed most of your country is something I had heard was here before just not in the volumes it is now, the corn. The US&A used to be plains and prarie, a substantial portion is now corn. bk barunt says you can't get the toothpaste back in the tube. Some people say now that the place has been tilled it can't return to what it was. Guess we wait for the asteroid huh?

The barge stops about twice as far from me as the orchards, so yeah...

Actually i stole the quote. Trivia question of the month:

Who said "once the toothpaste is out of the tube it's gonna be a bitch to get back in."? Not word for word exact, but almost. The context and person who said it makes it twice as funny. Hint - big political scandal.


Honibaz

[2dimes]

I'm going to guess slick Willy.

[Timminz]

I'm going to guess slick Willy.

I'll second his slick willy.

[PLAYER57832]

One of the things that has completely changed most of your country is something I had heard was here before just not in the volumes it is now, the corn. The US&A used to be plains and prarie, a substantial portion is now corn.

With corn, you have even a greater problem. Corn actually was grown over much of this country, but now just about every ear of corn in our country comes from the same basic stock. One disease could easily wipe it all out.

This is actually true for most crops. There are a few companies that specialize in collecting unique seeds. Even big companies like Burpee now market what they call heritage seeds, though whether they truly are is a question. Having 10,000,000 purple tomatoes is not really better than 10,000,000 perfectly round red tomatoes. We need real diversity.

bk barunt says you can't get the toothpaste back in the tube. Some people say now that the place has been tilled it can't return to what it was. Guess we wait for the asteroid huh?

Actually, in this case you can buy seeds from some of the companies that specialize in this. I love just looking at the pictures. I have a catalogue from Baker Creek, for example. It has 117 pages full of pictures. They have 34 types of cucumbers, 47 types of eggplant, similar counts of other common vegetables, plus all kinds of stuff I almost gaurantee you have never heard of (nipple fruit anyone?).

Its a bit late in some areas, but just google "heritage seeds" and you will get a whole string of suppliers, some probably near you. Or just look at their websites.

[2dimes]

You can buy seeds to un-til the ground and return it to native grass land that was never touched by a plough?

[PLAYER57832]

You can buy seeds to un-til the ground and return it to native grass land that was never touched by a plough?

You can buy native grass seed, but the space to recreate vast Prairies no longer exist. Also, I don't know that all the seeds are available.

At any rate, as you indicated, completely going back won't happen, but then, most of us would not truly want that. What we need is to learn from the past and not continue the wanton, unthinking damage.

[2dimes]

There's a rather large area they are trying to study. There's manipulation but they are trying to recreate the conditions before whitey came and started messing with the place.
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/north ... grass.html

The link leads to young earth creationist's propaganda. Maybe.

[Woodruff]

The link leads to young earth creationist's propaganda. Maybe.

Thank you, Lionz.

[2dimes]

Oh oh, you're onto me.

[oddzy]

Oh oh, you're onto me.

was it good for you?

[AAFitz]

Fight Fire with Fire[ant] Flies


Done are the days of fire ants laughing at all those big creatures running away from a little pest many times smaller than itself. Now we can sit back and watch the ants act as if they are the ones with ants in their pants, and run, run away.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... mbie-ants/

[oVo]

You can buy seeds to un-til the ground and return it to native grass land that was never touched by a plough?

It doesn't quite work that way. The native grassland prairies "were" an ecosystem of their own with thousands of varieties of plants which were dominated by several types of grasses. These grasses have root systems that extend as deep as thirty feet into the ground making them drought resistant, fire resistant and even buffalo resistant in the days where millions of buffalo roamed North America.

During the first World War the common logic was who ever could feed their troops would prevail. Hundreds of thousands of acres of native prairie were plowed up and wheat was planted. After the war millions more acres of grasslands were plowed under to grow even more wheat. Then in the 1930s there was a 10 year drought which resulted in the "man made disaster" known as the Dust Bowl. The crops dried up, top soil blew away and at times the dust in sky was so concentrated it blocked the sunlight from the sky, it was a disaster of biblical proportions. People died of dust pneumonia and with the Great Depression gripping the country, the government didn't even recognize how bad the conditions were... until a black dust cloud blew all the way to Washington DC. The images that document this event are unbelievable.

It's true, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Texas now has almost no native prairies remaining, as a percentage of what once was it is essentially all gone. Forty plus years ago there was a movement that attempted to restore the native prairies and huge parcels of land were set aside. This is an ongoing effort re-establish some grassland prairies, but to date it has had very limited success and no substantial regions are fully recovered. Prairie restoration was begun when it was realized that the benefits of grasslands is comparable to the Amazon Rain Forest in the direct effect of these vast leaf surfaces to recycle carbon dioxide.

[strike wolf]

3 feet maybe a little over 3 feet sounds about right. back at high school in atlanta I once got dared to stick my shoe into a fire ant nest for 10 seconds. Being arrogant, I did it, kept it there for 20 and somehow was lucky only to come out of it with less than 20 stings.