Fireants are the worst scourge. We can only control them sort of. If they are in your area, you need to know which hospital can handle bad reactions correctly. Even after a few bites, you can have a severe reaction (hives where-ever you have hair), and then swelling of all 'skin' areas which can include your windpipe. I learned this the hard way in Houston.

For the wooly hackberry aphids, now that your fall Lady Beetle population has begun to surge, you may find the problem isn't a problem next year. The year we (and all of east TN) had the aphids bad, their black drippings discolored roofs, cars, even highway signs. We cut down a number of Hackberries in our yard. We left two. The next fall, I could see small shiny things up in the hackberries...the beetle population had surged.

There was some info on treating entire trees with systemic aphid-cides (it would take gallons of -cides) and you'd have to start in June or so to get the -cides to translocate into the farthest leaves where the aphids feed.

The black mold encrusted honeydew droppings of the aphids took about twelve months to wear off of DH's truck (decrepit truck with a lousy paint job but never stolen in New Orleans). Same time to wear off of some of our out buildings.

This year (two years after the deluge of wooly aphids) I only see one or two puffs floating back by our biggest hackberry. Tolerable.

I can't speak to the wooly aphids, but the ant behavior you're describing is completely consistent with fire ants, and if I recall correctly fire ants are known to attend aphids.

(A good number of ant species do that. The aphids secrete honeydew, which is a sugary liquid. When honeydew collects on leaves a black mold grows on it and eats it, covering the leaf in a black film, but ants eat the honeydew as the aphids excrete it. Some ant species then make a point of looking after the aphids, keeping predators from attacking the aphids, making sure they have access to the tenderest new shoots, which is where the aphids feed and reproduce most easily and quickly, etc.

If you have fire ants doing that they won't be happy about your presence when they detect you.)

It has been about 5 years now that we had a horrible infestation of ants in our home. I think the sugar maple tree must have been attracting ants for years, and now this mess.

We have 3 trees. One sugar maple, one cottonwood, and one ash. We got a good bid on the three last weekend, and they will be gone on Wed. The guy uses a crane and mulches. We will handle the stumps, and maybe someday build a pagoda for shade. The sugar maple has always had ants and other bugs. The cottonwood is totally obnixious, and will take over the entire property someday. The ash is bent because of the storms in the past.

I love my roses and our 15 crape myrtles. That will be all the trees that we need.

Ann, I really appreciate your help this year and last year. There seems to be nobody here who is suffering through this problem, and the fire ants will be a problem themselves without a sugar tree to hide in.

York rose, I knew about the relationship, but not why. This makes perfect sense. I think as long as I have the sugar maple, I will have ants even if the woolley aphids leave.

THanks for your input.
Sammy

If you have fire ants you will have them regardless of the trees in your yard.

We were in town today and Knoxville has a really wierd traffic pattern at Easttown (aka Town Center) Mall. There are some stands of trees alongside the interstate, with lots of asphalt and buildings. In among the stands of trees are some multiflora with RRD and a bunch of widely separated Hackberries. Under each hackberry that's near the frontage road, there are black smears from the wooly hackberry aphids.
I'd guess this is because there are no ladybeetle habitats (for overwintering) anywhere nearby.
Our outbuildings are pretty much unaffected, but we've got a house and barns and outbuildings for the ladybeetles to winter in.
When we say we live with nature, we mean it. In ways that city dwellers might never reach.

I have solved my wooley aphid problem. My day has been too busy to show you the tree stumps from the three trees, but we have no more trees.

We met with the tree man on Sunday, and he said I could just transplant a few of my roses, and he could bring his trucks right in. I said that wouldn't work, I didn't want to move my roses. He measured eveything, and said his crane could reach across the roses. He took them out today.

How can you stay home from work to watch the cranes pick your trees out of your yard???? There was no way I could justify that, so my husband took pictures and all the neighbors watched. Everyone but me, and I love to watch big machines.

A guy went up into the trees, and tied something onto a limb, then they lifted entire sections across my rose bed, way up in the air to the chipper shreader. My sugar maple had three major trunks. It was 30 years old. They did one trunk at a time, and when it was in the air, it looked like the tree was flying. I missed it all.

We chose not to spend the money to have the stumps ground and the roots ground, so I will need to start putting in salt now.

My problem is solved, and I will never need to know whether woolley is woolley wooley wooly woolly or whatever.

My roses arrive tomorrow!!!!
Sammy