I arrived home after a long trying day at work, walked down to the dock...and every single fish in the bay was piping for oxygen.

Or so I thought.

Evidently there had been a hatch of flying ants, and the surface of the lake was littered with their little struggling bodies. The fish were feasting!!

Phew!

Phew indeed. I thought you said "fire ants", not "flying ants".

Phew!!!

No need to feed tonight eh?

I did not know that you actually worked Bruce

Got my old dentist back and what a relief! Phew!!!

I Said, make em sparkle and eat the insurance up! He said, I will!

LOL. I fed 'em anyway. . They tried to horse down a few pellets. No exaggeration when I say there were millions. An entire 15 acre lake, wall to wall flying ants, but not a single one in the sky. What's up with THAT?

You must be living right!! Manna from Heaven!

If I could just figure out how to make this happen once a week.

Had the same thing happen to me last week but they were not ants...pulled up to the pond and fish everywhere at the surface. I had flashbacks of my fish kill earlier this spring, but after looking closer there were millions of gnats on the surface of the water and the fish were foundering themselves on them. Like you said PHEW!!!!!!!

Brings up a topic that may lead to a pb experiment. Read a study on feeding fish termites. Termites have roughly 42.5% protein as well as other beneficial enzymes etc.... If a pondmeister could come up with a mesh type cage and place a number of female termites as well as a king or two it could be a fish feeding machine. Older females will lay aprox 2000 eggs per day and the pheromones produced would attract swarming termites. Place it just above the pond surface and presto.

Bruce, how bug proof is your new digs? You sure they weren't termites?

That's kinda what I was thinking...termites. I think I read something long ago, that flying ants are actually subterranean termites swarming......

Amazingly....zero insects on the water. I went to take photos to see if they were termites, but couldn't find a single body. Almost as if they were never there. Creepy. How do they all know how to hatch at the same time?

...and I called my builder. He laughed. Said that termites don't love cement board, steel and stucco that much. :-)

That's good! In So. Cal. you can tent a house this year to kill all the termites, and if you have any exposed wood (even if it's painted) next year when they swarm, they can re-infest the house.

DDT..........

Chlordane........

In all seriousness though Bruce, they will eat sheetrock paper.If you find sheetrock, that the paper is blistered on.....bingo!

I actually have never met anybody in my region who had a termite issue. Never saw another bug after that one day. Gotta admit you make me want to learn more.