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Fire ants create soil mounds that are very easy to identify. There are various pesticides that can be used on the mounds, but because the colonies form large underground structures, killing the fire ants at one mound only causes the ants to establish another mound nearby. Still, using the pesticides will knock them back quite a bit. They never come inside the home, although they may have mounds at the base of patios, fence posts, etc. Still, because the mounds are pretty obvious, it is easy for adults and pets to avoid them. You may need to keep an eye on small children in new areas, but otherwise we find them aggravating rather than devastating.
Are they in the house or is it more of an outside kind of annoyance!
I lived in TX for 20 years before moving here to Raleigh 6 years ago. The amount of fire ants here is a drop in the bucket compared to TX and LA. I sometimes can go a whole summer without having to treat more than 1 or 2 mounds in my 1/2 acre yard. In TX, it was that many mounds per week, in a 1/5 acre yard!
And fire ants do not always stay outside. I had a peculiar experience in TX that I enjoy relaying to people who are squeamish about them. . . . . I have been a cyclist for at least 20 years. When I finish a ride, I hand wash my shorts in the bathroom sink and lay them over the edge of the tub to dry. One morning, I went into my bathroom and saw a fire ant trail leading along the edge of the tub and under the shorts. I picked up the shorts and discovered hundreds. . . maybe thousands . . . . of fire ant eggs stashed under my still damp shorts. THEY WERE BUILDING A NURSERY UNDER MY SHORTS!
NewUser isn't exaggerating about the tenacity of fire ants. I am from Texas, and have many stories about fire ants as well. I found Amdro to work fairly well for maintaining them, but as far as I know there isn't anything to eliminate them, although, like a few have mentioned, gas makes for a pretty cool display. I'm sure the person who develops something to annihilate fire ants will be designated a hero in Texas !!
The people who mainly have problems with fire ant bites are gardeners. Sometimes without paying close attention I stick my hand in the middle of one while weeding. They sting like the dickens and leave red marks where they bite. I always keep Amdro on hand- year round and while it might not completely kill them it does seem to control. Sometimes I can quiet a hill for a few weeks only to have it come back pretty active.
The secret is to never put anything on the hill while they are active. That means don't kick the hill and then decide to put Amdro on it. It works much better on a sleeping hill around dusk. It is tempting for kids to want to poke with a stick or kick to see the millions of angry ants spew forth. Not a good idea.
I've never seen a commercial enterprise (lawn maintenance) claim to kill fire ants but I'm sure it can be done. Question is how many chemicals do you want to use close to your home.
I've never had an encounter with them in the 7 years I've been living in NC. At least I don't think I have. I guess I've gotten tiny ants on me a couple times while gardening that stung just a little bit, but they just brushed off and were no big deal.
I found Amdro to work fairly well for maintaining them, but as far as I know there isn't anything to eliminate them, although, like a few have mentioned, gas makes for a pretty cool display. I'm sure the person who develops something to annihilate fire ants will be designated a hero in Texas !!
I have decent luck with Amdro. Gas works on yellow jacket nests, but I'm not sure how well it works with fire ants since their mounds are so expansive underground.
I've lived in Charlotte, then Raleigh for a total of about 8 years and they are MUCH less here than Atlanta, (where I had a long, drawn out war with them for 20 years).
Ten percent as bad, if that much: Fewer hills, and smaller.
I'm pretty sure that's because while most of the weather here feels very similar to as Atlanta, the Tri has winter days that get a bit colder, for a few more days and this inhibits them here quite a lot.
However: back in Atlanta:
I never saw a one inside. Carpenter ants? all the time, but not a one fire ant.
When I got my house, it had been vacant for a year, so I almost had to put Fire Ants as a co-owner. I tried all the standard 'cures'. Gas, lighter fluid, several poisons.
The most effective was the PROPER application of Amdro. The trick, as mentioned above, is to recognize and use it as a food-bait, not instant contact-poison.
1) apply it to an UNDISTURBED nest, to just outside the perimeter. NOT on top. You want them to find it when they are hungry, not at war.
2) then apply a lot of patience. I mean days!!! They have to find it, carry it inside, and eat it, then die. And you have to hope that some of it gets fed to the queen. If it does, then you have to wait for the non-poisoned workers to die off from age and not be replaced.
This was the only permanent way. All the contact poisons did were to kill 50-90% of the workers, the queen would move and repopulate within a few weeks at some (no-doubt intentionally LOL) more inconvenient location.
Last edited by Ed_RDNC; 05-04-2014 at 11:53 AM..
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