FIRE ANTS

[EddieWalker]

I was against Dirt Dobbers, but then I learned that their favorite food is Black Widow Spiders.

Just about any dark space will have a black widow in it. Water valve boxes in the ground are always full of them.

 

[WM75Guy]

I definitely try to kill off the fire ants. I tend to leave the red ants as they compete with the fire ants, lesser of 2 evils. As far as spiders I leave the garden type spiders alone, although it is getting harder to identify good from bad. We now have the brown widow spider in Texas, made its way over from Florida.

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[3Ts]

The imported fire ants are coming. Texas has a native fire ant which is not as bad as the imported ant. It appears that they don't survive below 10*F.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

I have fire ants all over my place in East Texas. I also have plenty of ticks. One of the excuses that I tell myself for getting guieneas is that they eat ticks. I'm not sure how many they eat, I haven't seen any sore of decline in ticks, but I do have a lot fewer grasshoppers, so there's that.

I was told that chiggers where a problem here before fire ants took over. I've never been bit by a chigger here, but I have been tore up by them in the Hill Country near Kerrville TX. If fire ants are keeping chiggers away, then I'm good with fire ants. At least I can spot their mounds and avoid them!!

I'm a little bit over a hundred miles south of you, and chiggers are the bane of my existence. They get places fire ants don't. When the weather warms up I slather on the Deet and wear my snake boots in an attempt to keep them at bay. I've always wondered how the natives put up with 'em.

 

[Tx Jim]

Several yrs back when my older brother was helping me in my custom hay baling operation we could both walk through same tall grass. My brother would start complaining about Chiggers biting him BUT they never bothered me. So I'll choose presence of Chiggers over Fire ants any day.

 

[JethroB]

Yesterday I picked up two 2 lb shaker cans and two 5 lb bags of broadcast Amdro. I am ready for Spring. Treat the individual mounds then broadcast around the yard/barn/implements. That works pretty well for about a year, then rinse & repeat next year.

 

[RoninB4]

I was going through basic training in 1973 at Lackland AFB (near San Antonio) and walking across the base I thought the ground appeared to be moving due to heat mirage. It was a colony of fire ants battling a colony of black ants that seemed to be losing the conflict, there even appeared to be fire ants taking slaves of the other colony and escorting them out of the fray. Never seen anything like it before or since, it must have covered 1/4 acre or more.

I then made the mistake of getting in too close for a better look and got my first taste of what fire ants can/will do. We've got a variety of them here in SE Tennessee but they don't seem to have the same burning venom as they do further South. Perhaps the original strain has been diluted with the local ants. Had them invade the house once when I lived near Bastrop (Tx) and they came in for a snack in the middle of the night while I was asleep on the carpeting.

 

[Jchonline]

Dynamite the little bastards!

 

[Wyobuckaroo]

Up here we don't have fire ants... Knock on wood...

We do have ants that have built a mound almost the size of a VW beetle... I treat it with 20 Mule Team borax and table sugar mixed half and half... I treat the mound on 3 sides leaving the open side to encourage them to migrate away from buildings.. I could kill most of the mound easy enough, but don't want the survivors moving in a building or somewhere I don't want them and being harder to manage..

One other control method that seems to work well is, in late evening, to make a small hole in the top of the mound.. From up wind, pour in 1 to 4 liters of household amonia.. Right after that pour in 1 to 4 liters of plain bleach... This all depending on mound size.. Throw a meter or so square of old carpet over the top and the next day most of the colony will be history.. I have found the home remidies work as well and are much cheaper than purchased products that I have used...

In the pasture the most fun is if I can find the mounds, hover over them with the brush hog mower.. It really messes up there day...