Damage to pine tree tips, homemade ant traps

I have several large spruce trees in my yard, close to the woods.  Since it began warming up, there have been a couple hundred small, green spruce branch tips lying on the ground. They appear to come from all over the trees but not at the very bottoms.  Is this ice damage?

It could be if we had ice and other people’s trees had received the same damage.  But your problem is unique.  Every late winter-early spring, several people report similar things going on with their spruces.

How to tell what created the damage is to look at the separated end on the ground.  How it looks gives you an idea who or what caused it to happen.  The height at which the damage occurred can also add information.  If you suspect a weather event, when did it happen?  We have not experienced any freezing rain or ice storms in quite awhile.  Often, ice or heavy snow will snap off bigger branches than just the tips.  The separated ends will look broken.

There are critters wearing fur coats that can and often do cause damage.  Some you can remove from the critter list just because they don’t do these kinds of things and some are currently hibernating.  That list includes opossums, raccoons, skunks moles, woodchucks, muskrats, voles and chipmunks.

If the damage was voles, or meadow mice, chewing damage would be to small trees with thin bark at ground level.  Rabbits can damage higher. Both of their bark damage looks like gnawing.  Deer will snap the ends off evergreens and their bite will be a diagonal slice.  Because they only have lower incisors and a tough upper gum, their damage is always the same.  They will only damage as high as they can reach.

The most likely suspects are squirrels.  They can damage all over trees because they can climb.  Their damage is gnawing, leaving a ragged separation.  Squirrels are famous for their “crazy parties” of racing, chasing and nipping.  Even if you identify your furry criminal, there is little to do to prevent further damage.  You may never have another problem and trees will recover.

I was told that I could make ant baits rather than buy them.  Is this true?

If you are troubled with small ants in the house in the spring, you can mix your own bait to eliminate them.

Small ants are defined as any ant under one-quarter of an inch long.  The secret killing ingredient is boric acid in powder form.  It can be found in pharmacies and some hardware stores.  It has to be mixed with something that the ants want to eat.  Depending on what kind of ants are indoors, some prefer sweet foods like powdered sugar, honey, syrup or jelly, some eat protein like pulverized dry cat food or peanut butter and some consume oily food like bacon grease or greasy peanut butter.  The first step is to find the right food.

Put out a very small amount of each of the three groups where you have seen the ants. Put it on small pieces of waxed paper or cardboard. If they all gather around the powdered sugar, now turn it into your bait.

Mix a small amount of boric acid into the sugar.  That means less than half.  Too much makes it so bitter that even ants reject it.

Place the bait where the ants are.  Let them eat it and take it away to poison the colony.  Don’t pound them flat while they are eating.  They should be instruments of their own destruction.

Eventually, one of two things will happen.  The colony is killed off or the weather outside gets warm and the remaining ants all run for the great outdoors where they would rather be.  In either case, your problem is solved.

Contact Gretchen Voyle, MSU Extension-Livingston County Horticulture Educator, at (517) 546-3950.

DON’T MISS A BEAT

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

We don’t spam!

Sharing is caring!

The Livingston Post is the only locally owned, all-digital information and opinion site in Livingston County, Mich. It was launched by award-winning journalists who were laid off from the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus by Gannett Co. Inc. in 2009.