BEER could be used to bait an exotic ant to sterilise its queen and turn the colony into zombies.
The browsing ant was discovered feasting on the yeast and sugar of broken beer bottles at the Port of Darwin at East Arm by vigilant wharfies in July.
The wharfies reported the unusual find, prompting the introduction of a multiple government detector sniffer dog program.
more..
I wonder if that technique could be used on Fire Ants?
Sniffer dogs to find the fire ant colonies
special brew of ant beer to sterilize the colony
as time goes by only fancy boutique beers will be good enough for them
CrazyNeutrino said:
I wonder if that technique could be used on Fire Ants?Sniffer dogs to find the fire ant colonies
special brew of ant beer to sterilize the colony
I’ve heard that sniffer rats have a better sense of smell than sniffer dogs. They’re more the right size for sniffing out ants. On the other hand, if rats or dogs are attracted by the smell of beer …
The ants at my house are attracted by artificial maple syrup, by honey, by devon, and by water, but not by dry sugar. I haven’t tried them on beer, but they’d probably be attracted by that as well.
I would suppose wharfies would know a few things on the topic of exotic species.
i would imagine dogs are used because they cover more ground. they smell the nest so size isn’t important. rats are used for mines because they are light and wont set them off. the dogs can do ~2 hectares a day from the report i saw.
They are using one of the Biosecurity Queensland Fire ant dogs and she is only in training at the moment.
Beer would be a very expensive bait substrate. I imagine that they will probably go with a granular, protein based substrate and an insect growth regulator as an active. The previous infestation In Perth was treated this way with good results. There is another infestation in WA that is currently being treated with this methodology.
Dogs do not smell the nest. They smell the individuals.
When there are large numbers, the odour is all around. They’re great for delimiting the outermost edges of the infestation and at their best when tracking down remnants.
mollwollfumble said:
CrazyNeutrino said:
I wonder if that technique could be used on Fire Ants?Sniffer dogs to find the fire ant colonies
special brew of ant beer to sterilize the colony
I’ve heard that sniffer rats have a better sense of smell than sniffer dogs. They’re more the right size for sniffing out ants. On the other hand, if rats or dogs are attracted by the smell of beer …
The ants at my house are attracted by artificial maple syrup, by honey, by devon, and by water, but not by dry sugar. I haven’t tried them on beer, but they’d probably be attracted by that as well.
On the other hand, if rats or dogs are attracted by the smell of beer ..
the beer comes later
sniffer dogs find the ant nest first
then the beer is applied
We have a researcher here working on training bees to find ant colonies. Bees have a far more sensitive sense of smell than a mammal.
They also don’t cost $50 000 to train and have an upkeep approaching $100 000 per year.
The difficulty comes with tracking the bee. Particularly as the ants I work with are in sugar cane and dense tropical rainforest.
Teleost said:
They are using one of the Biosecurity Queensland Fire ant dogs and she is only in training at the moment.Beer would be a very expensive bait substrate. I imagine that they will probably go with a granular, protein based substrate and an insect growth regulator as an active. The previous infestation In Perth was treated this way with good results. There is another infestation in WA that is currently being treated with this methodology.
ok, its good to know that they are onto it