I am risking the wrath of
I know it is you, Ed a commenter by posting this, but it worked and no worms were harmed. A while back fire ants had set up a colony in my compost bin. I used diatomaceous earth to kill many of them. The rest moved. This weekend I discovered they had moved into my worm bin. I dusted the top with DE, but was afraid to disturb the bin contents too much. I have read that fire ants hate molasses and cinnamon and have tried both with limited success in evicting fire ants. This time I used both. A cheap bottle of cinnamon from the dollar store and a bottle of molasses were applied to the bin and watered in well. I am happy to report that the ants moved on. While, I know they will show up someplace else, I am happy they are gone from the compost pile and worm bin. I can use more direct methods outside of the bins. I want to harm as few the good bugs as possible. After the molasses and cinnamon, the worms looked particularly fat, active and healthy.
Worm poo is very good poo. I put rabbit poo in the worm bin along with kitchen scrap and the resulting castings are wonderful for plants. A tea made from these castings is a great foliar feed as well.
To read more about poo and guano check out these posts from
Weed Wackin Wenches and
Poor Richard's Almanac.
