World DominAnt

Over the years that we've lived on top of this hill in south London, I've come to regard it as one big anthill. Every time I turn over a flagstone in the garden, it's teeming with ants beneath. They relentlessly try to establish aphid ranches on my artichokes and beans. Walking to the train, I see little eruptions of sand and ant activity betwixt most of the paving stones. Yesterday I saw hundreds of wing-ed ones issuing out of a crevice in the garden path. Well now I read that I've got that wrong by an order of magnitude. There are super colonies in Europe, Japan and America. Billions of ants all belonging to one global mega-colony. In light of this news, my pouring boiling water on one lot (or feeding the grubs to the chickens) looks a bit feeble.