Ants

On February 3, 2004, ANTS POLDMAE beloved husband of Marju (nee Siimsen); loving father of Andres Poldmae and his wife Sara, Aime Poldmae and the late Tarmo Poldmae; dear brother of Douglas Poldmae and Pille Sarapuu. Survived by several nieces and nephews and many loving family members in Estonia. A Funeral Service will be held at the family owned Ruck Towson Funeral Home, Inc., 1050 York Road (Beltway Exit 26A), on Saturday at 11 a.m. Interment Moreland Memorial Park. Friends may call on Friday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. If so desired, contributions in Mr. Poldmae's memory may be made to the Baltimore Estonian School.

I had separate conversations earlier this offseason with a scout from a rival team and a player agent that basically intimated the same thing: The industry was watching what the Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays would do this winter because they are viewed as the potential new guard in the AL East with the New York Yankees aging, the Boston Red Sox rebuilding and the Tampa Bay Rays hampered by payroll. The agent said Baltimore and Toronto could be easier sells this year to clients because the sense is that both teams are in a position to win now and for a few more years if they make the right choices.

My friend and I both saw a bright red fuzzy insect on the ground. Never saw anything like it before! She thinks it's an ant, but I think it's a wasp. What say you? Red velvet ants are wasps, but the females are wingless and that's why they look like ants darting about on the ground. The adult males have wings but no red hair like the females. Males also can't sting, but the females pack quite a wallop, earning them the nicknames of "cow-killer" and "mule-killer. " Most of the body is black, but in the insect world red coloring means danger, and they aren't kidding.

My friend and I both saw a bright red fuzzy insect on the ground. Never saw anything like it before! She thinks it's an ant, but I think it's a wasp. What say you? Red velvet ants are wasps, but the females are wingless and that's why they look like ants darting about on the ground. The adult males have wings but no red hair like the females. Males also can't sting, but the females pack quite a wallop, earning them the nicknames of "cow-killer" and "mule-killer. " Most of the body is black, but in the insect world red coloring means danger, and they aren't kidding.

Under some of my cabbage and broccoli plants there are ant hills. The stems look weak on those plants compared to others. Are the ants eating the plants? Ants don't eat garden plants, but a large colony can interfere with a root system and thus stunt a plant. While ants are helpful when they aerate the soil or churn the soil, bringing up nutrients from deep soil, you may have a case of too much of a good thing. Sprinkle diatomaceous earth on the ant hills. The sharp edges on this powder of fossilized diatoms should penetrate and kill enough ants to reduce the population.

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.--Proverbs 6:6The ant's industry is -- please pardon the pun -- proverbial. In the fable, isn't the ant, as the foil of the sun-giddy grasshopper, the symbol of foresight and prudence?These warm sunny days are the season for ants. In the garden I notice them crawling, always in a hurry, among ant-sized specks of dirt; and on sidewalks, as I stroll with my dog, I see their mounds -- brown creepy doughnuts -- in the cracks between the concrete slabs.

YOU FIND THEM scaling the sides of the sink. You find them crawling along the edge of the stove. You find them in the dog's bowl, swarming through the food he's just been eating. Gross! No wonder Fido seems antsy. Before long, ranks of the insect multitudes may swell to the point that they just pick him up and carry him off. A solid month of rain, preceded by record snowfalls, has apparently been even harder on the ants than on the rest of us. Their nests have been flooded so often, they finally just packed up and moved to higher ground - your house.

Something is making perfect inverted cones in the soil beside our house. Should we worry? These clever funnel-shaped traps are made by antlion nymphs, also known as doodlebugs. When ants walk on the trap's dry crumbly sides, they fall into the bottom of the trap where an antlion hides, waiting to eat them. If you dig at the bottom, you'll find this brown dusty predator with its long pincher jaws, who is intercepting ants before they get into your house. My hollyhock leaves are turning red and yellow.

DALLAS -- The world could be a very efficient place if more people would just stick their heads in the sand -- and take a look at all the ants.To you, perhaps, ants mostly mean spoiled picnics. But to a handful of scientists who want to improve airplane travel, telecommunications networks and Internet traffic, ants are pure inspiration.The idea is simple. Ants do some pretty intricate tasks. Even without the benefit of training seminars or personal organizers, thousands of ants can figure out how to cooperate to build colonies, find food, tend to their young and remove their dead.

My 3-year-old fig tree is finally producing ripe figs. I'm a little upset, however, by the ants that crawl into the opening that appears on the bottom of the ripe fruits.Is there anything I can do about this?The small opening, referred to as the "eye," is common on most fig varieties. Ants find the sweet interior irresistible. But they do crawl out when you disturb them, and they don't usually affect the eating quality of the figs.You may be leaving your figs on the tree too long. Try to harvesting them as soon as they are fully colored and begin to droop a bit.By the way, Celeste is one of the fig varieties that is well adapted to our area.

Under some of my cabbage and broccoli plants there are ant hills. The stems look weak on those plants compared to others. Are the ants eating the plants? Ants don't eat garden plants, but a large colony can interfere with a root system and thus stunt a plant. While ants are helpful when they aerate the soil or churn the soil, bringing up nutrients from deep soil, you may have a case of too much of a good thing. Sprinkle diatomaceous earth on the ant hills. The sharp edges on this powder of fossilized diatoms should penetrate and kill enough ants to reduce the population.

Atlantic City gets an undeserved bad rap. The area doesn't exactly conjure thoughts of luxury, class and glamour. Its casino roots are kind of hard to shake. (Insert images of smoke-filled rooms, gold chains, exposed chest hair and hideously cheap outfits.) The MTV show "Jersey Shore" hasn't exactly helped to inspire thoughts of class. When the Miss America pageant abandoned Atlantic City for Las Vegas in 2006, some thought that was the last bit of glitz to leave. And now comes HBO's "Boardwalk Empire," a TV drama that paints the city with gangster stripes.

Question: I saw an ad that said I should get rid of "wood" ants in my yard. What does the University recommend about outside ants? Answer: You want to have ants in your yard. They kill termites and eat many other pests, e.g. Japanese beetle eggs. Their foraging cleans up the constant plant debris created in a landscape. Their soil tunnels aerate the soil, helping plant roots get the oxygen they must have to survive. Their tunneling also moves nutrients deep in the soil up to where roots can use them.

Wherever Morgan State's basketball team goes this season, the Bears take Anthony Anderson with them. He was in Winston-Salem, N.C., last week - in spirit, at least - when they won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament championship. And he'll be in Buffalo's HSBC Arena on Friday - emotionally - when they play West Virginia in an opening-round game in the NCAA East Regional. Physically, the 19-year-old from St. Charles remains at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has been waging a fight against acute myeloid leukemia since October.

Even as slot-machine projects in Maryland stall, other states are betting big on expanded gambling. In West Virginia, Charles Town Races and Slots just 75 miles west of Baltimore plans to offer poker, roulette and other table games as early as the summer after winning voter approval this month. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Edward G. Rendell pushed state lawmakers last week to speed approval of table games, warning that if they did not expand casino gambling, more state workers could be laid off. But in Maryland, only one casino development is on schedule a year after bidding for five available slots licenses began.

Caroline Baker, in Baltimore, says "tiny black ants have shown up in my bathtub and kitchen sink ... Are they ... looking for water because the ground is so dry?" Nope. UM entomologist Mike Raupp says they're "odorous house ants," foraging for the sweet aphids hatching now. "If they find a nice supply of goodies in the kitchen, they will set up a trail and drive you nuts." Follow the trail to a food spill.