While it seems like there are maybe more ants this year than usual, Provincial Entymologist Dr. James Tansey said they have no clear way of determining whether or not there actually are more ants. It could be due to the climate changes from year to year, or it could be due to unknown factors.

Dr. Tansey said some may think the presence of ants in their yard means their gardens are being pollinated, that's actually more of a myth.

"They're not terribly effective pollinators as adults, the winged form, I mean the only thing they're interested in is mating, so they're they're not going to be feeding on flowers. I wouldn't count them as as really effective pollinators."

What if you find them in your home?

"The most sensible thing is is to block off the routes for them to get in, and they are very small and they can get in getting some fairly confined spots," he explained. "But if you do see a trail, then they are laying a pheromone trail down there, try pouring boiling water on it to disrupt the pheromone trail, and then plug that hole up to prevent them from getting back in."

He said this works because once they establish that little route they're going to stick to that because it's "paying off". 

Dr. Tansey said you could also try some more hard core products.

"There are registered insecticides that can be used to control them, so if you do have a colony, there are pyrethroid insecticides that are mixed in with baits. I've seen people have good luck with these. There are ones that are also mixed with with borate, so these are the the sort of classic ones where they're taking it back to the queen and and and causing her problems." 

When they're not climbing the walls in your home, or in your pants, ants are not normally considered to be too much of a nuissance. However, Dr. Tansey said ants can, in fact, be damaging to plants in their own way.

"Some of them are actually farmers, and they'll actually farm pierce-and-sucking insects like like aphids and take care of them, to collect the honeydew on them," he noted. "So you can even end up with a larger than normal population of insects that can be damaging to the plants, so it's not the not the ants themselves. It's the animals were farming that can be damaging to the plants."

Dr. Tansey said they can also do damage to tree roots by doing their thing and disrupting the tree's ability to take up water.

As as a rule, however, he said, plants don't don't really suffer from from ant activity. In fact, they can help to break up and loosen packed soil and create aeration where otherwise it wouldn't be possible.

"Of course, if you get a big colony in a patch of grass, it becomes very noticeable, because the grass has a hard time establishing with their with their activity, but ants are overall beneficial to ecosystem function."

Their colonies are very good at at loosening soil at the nutrient cycling, said Dr. Tansey, and they're important food sources for a number of different critters. 

"You know when they take flight during their mating flights, of course, they're on the wing and you can see lots of birds feeding on them. So yeah, they are very important to the ecosystem. Fundamental."