Are they coming for the afids?

they will "farm" aphids and other pests, use an insecticidal soap to get rid of the pests and the ants should go also. They will dig up around the roots and can harm or kill your plant,at least the fire ants can, they build such a big underground complex.
Tally HO!

I just let them do their thing, but then I try not to use any pesticides on mine. Pests also pollinate the flowers. ;)

astrl

Of course, aphids and spider mites don't pollinate flowers so if you just spray neem oil (organic) on the leaves, it kills them but not the bees, as long as you don't spray the bees. Spider mites will quickly overwhelm a plumeria if you aren't careful and aphids will suck the juices out of the tips and cause them to die.

I don't like them and do my best to keep them away from my containers. One time an ant colony moved into my Royal Hawaiian container. It proceeded to reduce the actual soil capacity of the container by 30-40% I didnt notice until the Royal Hawaiian was wilting in the summer sun. Once found and transplanted it quickly recovered.

They're so hard to budge from a pot sometimes--especially fire ants--that I've resorted to ant bait. It works very well to remove colonies from pots.

From what I can tell about the tiny ones that go for the tips, they don't seem to be doing any harm at all and I leave them alone.

Hi Dourbest,

I am by no means an expert, but I submerged my plants in their pots last year, and had ants on them all year. It didn't seem to hurt the plants at all. But I never had them make a mound in the pots or anything.

If it weren't for those Spectracide ant granules I think the entire state of Texas would just be one huge fire ant mound. They are so vicious, putting down the granules is a bit satisfying.

Agreed on that elucas! I can't keep them out of anything in my back yard. They are everywhere.

Here in Calif., a natural ant deterent...eucalyptus branch/leaves...people lay them around on their counters when they have ant trouble...roxanne

roxanne - that's a good tip. I've been meaning to get some eucalyptus leaves to try and drive off the widow spiders (our back porch and garage are overrun with black and brown widows! yuck!), but I didn't realize it worked on ants as well.