Will ants wreck my strawberry crop?

There is an ants’ nest in my plastic compost bin on my allotment. A neighbour says they could spoil my strawberries which are growing nearby. What’s the best way to deal with ants?

Ants cannot be labelled exclusively as garden foes, since they do much good as well as causing damage. They control aphids to an extent and that makes them good guys, but they also cause havoc with all that mining and tunnelling and engineering. This results in ant hills on lawns and can also undermine or destabilise paving.
The ants on your allotment might feast on the sugary juice exuding from your strawberries, but the damage they cause would probably be fairly limited. They are often found feeding where a snail or slug has already eaten a hole in the strawberry, making the juicy centre of the fruit more accessible to them.
You can control ants by using special bait dispensers which are placed near the colonies. These usually contain borax which is toxic to ants, and which they carry into their colonies. There are also nematode controls for ants if they are troublesome.
Do remember, however, that ants are important in the ecosystem. If they are not troublesome, don’t feel obliged to destroy them.