Corn meal: To rid your house or lawn of these pesky insects sprinkle corn meal on their mounds at night. The ants will take the corn meal into their nest for the queen to eat and it will kill her.
Only drawback is that grits DO NOT WORK on fire ants.
The species simply DOES NOT EAT SOLIDS. Not the ants, the queen or the larvae.
So there is no way the grits will swell and kill. If you have seen RIFA dragging solids like seeds around it's because they take them back to the nest to 'suck' dry of oils and water.
Messing with the nest, brood or queen simply means they take off for a few metres away using their extensive underground tunnel network - which can extend 20 yards or more away from the visible nest mound.
GAS and KERO will poison the soil they contact directly for decades (check out the EPA advice), and then leach their way into you and your neighbours' water supply, killing plants, fish, birds and eventually you too.
Use a combo IGR bait or indoxacarb according to the Texas Two Step method, and do get your neighbours to join in otherwise your time, money and effort are being way less efficiently used. And if you live in an area rated "fire ant free' make sure you observe plant quarantine regs when you buy or ship plants and high-risk materials and nag your councillors or reps to pull their fingers out.
Fire ants are beatable, but not having them in the first place is infinitely preferable.
Ian, Thanks for your comment. I don't know what kind of fire you ants you have in your area but here in Tennessee and also in South Carolina, at my dads house, the corn meal worked on about 5 different occasions. Now I admit that we had to do several applications but they bugged out. Let me know you area as I'm more than a little curious if you have a different species.
THE ANTS WILL BRING THE CORNMEAL INTO THE NEST TO EAT. WITH THE SURROUNDING MOISTURE IN THE GROUND IT WILL TURN INTO METHANE GAS AND DROP TO THE DEPTHS WHERE THE QUEEN IS. KILLS THEM ALL
I know it sounds completely out there, but there is NOTHING that works like corn meal. It's not an over-night fix - takes about a week or so (btw, I live down here in Texas) - but corn meal is without question the world's best unknown fire ant killer!
4 comments:
Only drawback is that grits DO NOT WORK on fire ants.
The species simply DOES NOT EAT SOLIDS. Not the ants, the queen or the larvae.
So there is no way the grits will swell and kill. If you have seen RIFA dragging solids like seeds around it's because they take them back to the nest to 'suck' dry of oils and water.
Messing with the nest, brood or queen simply means they take off for a few metres away using their extensive underground tunnel network - which can extend 20 yards or more away from the visible nest mound.
GAS and KERO will poison the soil they contact directly for decades (check out the EPA advice), and then leach their way into you and your neighbours' water supply, killing plants, fish, birds and eventually you too.
Use a combo IGR bait or indoxacarb according to the Texas Two Step method, and do get your neighbours to join in otherwise your time, money and effort are being way less efficiently used. And if you live in an area rated "fire ant free' make sure you observe plant quarantine regs when you buy or ship plants and high-risk materials and nag your councillors or reps to pull their fingers out.
Fire ants are beatable, but not having them in the first place is infinitely preferable.
http://fireant.tamu.edu/
Ian,
Thanks for your comment. I don't know what kind of fire you ants you have in your area but here in Tennessee and also in South Carolina, at my dads house, the corn meal worked on about 5 different occasions. Now I admit that we had to do several applications but they bugged out.
Let me know you area as I'm more than a little curious if you have a different species.
Thanks,
Tony
THE ANTS WILL BRING THE CORNMEAL INTO THE NEST TO EAT. WITH THE SURROUNDING MOISTURE IN THE GROUND IT WILL TURN INTO METHANE GAS AND DROP TO THE DEPTHS WHERE THE QUEEN IS. KILLS THEM ALL
I know it sounds completely out there, but there is NOTHING that works like corn meal. It's not an over-night fix - takes about a week or so (btw, I live down here in Texas) - but corn meal is without question the world's best unknown fire ant killer!
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