Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 222, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1914 — WHITE ANTS IN GARDEN RHUBARB [ARTICLE]

WHITE ANTS IN GARDEN RHUBARB

By James Troop,

Department of Ento-

mology, Purdue University Experiment Station. (Purdue University Agricultural Extension.)

My attention has recently been called to a comparatively new insect enemy of the common garden rhubarb. A correspondent in Ripley county has sent to this office samples of rhubarb steins which are badly infested by the white ants. She says "they live inside the leaf stalk in considerable numbers, hollowing it out for an inch or two and sometimes even more, and the leaf thus cut off from its sap supply, wilts and falls over; then they enter the next stem. In this way, they have injured a great many plants.” The white ant does not belong to the same order as tfe common black ant, but is much more degraded in the scale of development. The black ants belong to the Order Hymenoptera, to j which belong the bees and wasps, while the white ants (so-called) belong to the Order of Platyptera. Termites or “white ants” are found in nearly all parts of the United States, but more commonly in subtropical and tropical countries. They feed on a variety of plants, usually however, confining themselves to woody or other fibrous material. They often do great damage to houses and other buildings, by tunneling through the sills or joists, and even the flooring where the building sits on or close to the ground. I have known of Instances in this state where the joists and flooring had to be removed and replaced with new. They sometimes get into greenhouses where it is kept damp, and work into the wooden benches and even get into pots and work into the stems of geraniums, but I have never found them working In rhubarb before. K J Like the black ants, they have a central breeding place or nest, but it is usually more difficult to find it. The workers never go above ground, or get into the sunlight, but always remain in the dark, hence, when they wish to go from one place to another, or from the home nest to their foraging ground, they always construct underground tunnels, often for considerable distances. If one ean find the parent nest, they can be easily exterminated by the use of carbon bisulfide poured into the nest. Infested stems should be gathered and burned. Where they are found working in timbers in houses or other buildings, a good coating of gasoline or creosote will usually stop their work. Of course, it is necessary to use precaution In the use of either carbon-bisulfide or gasoline, as both are highly explosive.