Are these new pseudo bulbs on Aurantiaca orchid? HU- check the conversation shown here, where I talked to someone about ants in orchid pots. Now, I can't speak for Australian ants, but most I have come in contact with aren't much more than just pests to orchid plants. Submerging your orchid in water for a couple of hours will not harm it--much like a long rainstorm. So long as you let it get nice and dry before you water again so you don't start root rot, you will be ok. If you don't want to actually kill the ants, then build them an escape route. something placed between the submerged pot and the side of the water container will allow the entire colony to escape with the queen and most of the eggs. Then move the pot. If you would prefer dead ants, submerge the pot just to the rim, and spray it with insecticide. Poof, all ants dead.

Bill

Thanks for your reassurance. After discovering a whole ant city in my dishwasher a few years ago, I’ve hardened my heart to the queen and her eggs, but I don’t want to use insecticides. I think I’ve managed to drown them all. The pot is now draining outside, in a bright spot under cover. It won’t get watered before next Sunday.

Sorry. Forgot to answer your question. No, it’s not an Aurantiaca orchid. It’s cymbidium Sarah Jean “Trish”. I don’t know anything about this cultivar. I bought it on eBay because I liked the photo of it. These days, I’m actually getting less and less dazzled by wondrous photos, and more drawn to bulletproof stuff.

Drowning them always worked for me.

I grew orchids for many years in NY. In Spring they all went outside for the summer. In the Fall, every pot got soaked in large buckets of water. The ants would run out and swim up the side of the bucket, many carrying eggs with them. I left them in the buckets for hours. Then they went in the house.

I had many orchids and it was a chore each fall but it worked. I never had an ant in the house.

Good job!

Jane

The first line of my last post was really not a question from me, just a way to point you to a very resent post that touched on the topic of ants in orchid pots. Jane wins the prize on this one. What a back breaking task to look forward to each fall :-). I am partial to a particular type of insecticide the ants take into the bed and place in their stored food supply. The material literally poisons the entire food supply with an odorless sweet tasting poison. Water is actually an excellent insecticide. It kills insects.

Bill