Growing Butternut Squash in the Fall Zone 8

Over the past few weeks my Butternut squash have been producing many male and female flowers. Our hand pollination techniques are producing sub par results. I have noticed that there are these tiny ants that have been navigating to every open flower collecting what I think is pollen. There are some butternut that have started to grow and then for some reason or another they fail and those same tiny ants are walking in and out of the shell. I suspect they may also be eating the squash. The one pictured has been doing very well along with three others. The butternut unlike other varieties of squash seem to take forever to grow and the longer they are on the vine the more I have to contend with fighting off everything that wants to eat them. Nevertheless, they really enjoy the cool weather and when we have warm fronts that move in they are taking full advantage of it as well. But all in all I am really liking my butternut this time of year.