ants on bonsai

Can anyone tell me what to use for ants on bonsai trees. They are laying eggs on my Barbados cherry leaves and a few other trees. I have them on my condo lanai 3 floors up. They are very small but annoying.

Hi s.jones

Are you sure it is not greenflies on the leafes, and the ants visit them, to harvest the sucker they produce?.

Kind regards Yvonne...spray for insects

Watch out for other parasites in the tree, especially scale insect because the ants "farm" them.

I've experienced the problem a few times and the ants were just a symptom of another problem. I sprayed with mineral oil (just make sure that your species of tree can deal with it) and the scale died and the ants left shortly afterwards.

Hope that helps.

Ants can sometime be an indication of over watering.

Whatever they are doing, the ants likely are not laying eggs on your tree. Ants nest in the ground -- or for some species in dead, rotten wood.

As others said, search though your trees for other insects -- most likely aphids or other soft-bodied sucking insects.

Use a spray with pyrethrins in it to kill the ants and the insects they're tending.

Ants are not a problem, they're merely a symptom: when I spot some, I use a tretment against aphids.

I hope you look for aphids first. There ARE other reasons for ants to be on a bonsai.

Of course.