So you're going to spray every one of your customers trees that have ants, hey?
Pretty ambitious, being as almost every tree in North America either has, or will have ants.
A better question may have been what are you doing cutting such a large branch off? Sounds to me like your customer's arborist is a much worse problem than the ants!
Seriously, I understand cutting large limbs like this is sometimes needed, and we as arborists just think about it as a staged removal. We find ourselves in so many yards, cutting down so many trees, what's the big deal about ruining another one?
We know that a soft maple will decay quickly and with that decay will come more ants, and the first instinct is to panic and spray some toxic substance, which we know won't help one bit. The real problem is the cutting.
Luckily, there has not been any study that shows ants to be harmful to a tree. Shigo, arguably the most widely known arborist to extensively study decay in trees, felt ants were likely beneficial to trees because they
slow the decay in these compartmentalized pockets of decay. I am inclined to agree, having cut many thousands of trees, and very rarely seen ants chewing into sound, un-compartmentalized wood.
What I'm suggesting, is that you put the blame where it belongs. Ant's can't (or don't) chew into healthy tissue. There first must be a pocket of decay. The ants just live there. Whatever caused the initial injury, that was the problem.
Now apply this to what you're doing on a daily basis. Do you every create wounds on trees? Do you spike live trees? Do you make cuts with your saw into live wood, especially larger diameter wood? Do you ever accidentally cut into branch collars?
We talked about this in the homeowner helper forum recently. There are very few (if any, depending on where you live) insects that are going to take up residence in deadwood, and pose a threat to the tree's health.
Let the ants be. Save the environment more chemicals needlessly applied to the customers yard. Instead, apply the money to improving the soil, or even watering the tree. Heck, maybe even plant a new instead, tree depending on what you charge to spray.
opcorn:
