We have a nice little bramley apple tree on the plot - that has no sign of buds for fruit, but it does have a lot of ants on the newest leaves at the branch tips.
This made Him Indoors go mental - hates ants - but I want to know, what are the little blighters doing up there, and should I be trying to get rid of them? ???
They farm greenfly on your trees, we put vaseline in a ring around the stem, stops the little b*ggers
yep. they are protecting the greenfly....need to get rid of them really
While they're about it, they'll happily devour any other pests they encounter. It's a case of the swings and the roundabouts, but aphids rarely do any harm, so I leave them alone. When I was a kid we had a cherry which was always smothered in blackfly, but it cropped well anyway.
The presence of ants is a good way of spotting aphids which are carefully concealing themselves knowing they have no right to suck your fruit trees sap, weakening its growth, devastating its fruit (if any), and passing on any relevant virus diseases (e.g. blackcurrant and raspberries).
The aphids are prolonging their unwelcome visit because there are not enough ladybirds or lacewings to do meeting and greeting (i.e. eat them).
One encourages ladybirds and lacewings best by providing them with over-winter accommodation containing woodchip and coarse hay respectively and then leaving it alone so that more find their way there in the following winter because it smells right.
The visual design of the woodchip/hay structure is immaterial you can do posh but I am for proletarian wire netting. Just plain heaps would be OK if they were undisturbed.