I have red ants nesting in my Robellini palm trees just below the palm fronds.

Is it safe to use Raid ant killing spray?

Thanks, Scott

I would inspect for scale. That's usually why ants get on plants, to put scale on them & farm their honeydew.

Scott, it's much better to use a bait rather than spraying for ants. Bait will get the whole colony and kill the queen. Try the Terro liquid bait stations, and if they won't take that try Amdro granular bait.

Spraying will just kill workers and more will hatch. Plus it also will cause the ants to make new nests.

If you're thinking that the ants are hurting the plant, they probably aren't but as Tiffany says you should definitely check to see if something else is going on. Once you've cleared out enough ants to see the area on the palm, a horticultural oil spray may be the next step to kill of the scale insects so the ants don't come back.

Thank you to everyone who responded. I'll go out and get some bait.

And to keep the scale Way, mulch your plants with used coffee grounds. I've read where a palm nursery in Florida discovered by accident that scale bugs don't like coffee grounds and stay away from them. They were using them as mulch and noticed that the plants they had used them on had no problems with scale bugs at all so they experimented and discovered that the bugs did not like coffee grounds!

@donnabking - Do you think the coffee grounds would keep caterpillars away? I had a huge poinsettia plant eaten by 20 caterpillars with 24hrs.