Help !!! Fire Ants !!!

[Torvy]

DE works. The insect basically get dehydrated to death. It gets chiggers, too. At least I can be careful and avoid most fire ants. I hate chiggers more. No warning until after you're chewed up.

 

[Handloader109]

You may kill a mound, but another will show up soon. It is a never ending battle.

 

[dieselscout80]

You may kill a mound, but another will show up soon. It is a never ending battle.

Even if you kill all of them they will be back because your neighbor aren’t treating them.

If you skip a year but they are right back.

 

[JethroB]

On the Amdro label it says do not disturb the mound when treating/sprinkling it. The theory is the disturbed fire ants will treat the granules as intruders and haul them away. I tested that and I saw that happen. Yep.

 

[gsganzer]

Amdro bait. It also needs to be fresh.

Interesting info: One year I waged Jihad on the fire ants, zapping every mound in my yard. I ended up having the biggest explosion of ticks. Now, I only zap the mounds that are in inconvenient places where you might make contact with them. My ticks have remained in check. Apparently, the dastardly little ants must attack ticks in their territory.

And another thing: How the heck do the fire ants all know to bite you at the same time?! You never have just one get on your skin and bite you, you usually have a dozen, and you don't realize it until they make a synchronized attack and all bite at once. The little bastids.

 

[old and tired]

....How the heck do the fire ants all know to bite you at the same time?!...

The alarm pheromone is very volatile and acts quickly on the nearby ants, which then begin to sting. It seems as though they are stinging all at the same time.

We used Extinguish Plus Fire Ant Bait for one experiment where we treated large plots by ATV. Works very well...

 

[EddieWalker]

I read that wasps also put out a pheromone when they attack. It just takes one to do this, and then all of them are attacking at the same time!!!

 

[Gem99ultra]

After ~70 messages with one method or another to kill fire ants, no doubt many or most chemicals recommended work, at least to some degree. I've been using Surrender which definitely does work but my hang-up is that it absolutely should not be used on or near agricultural areas. Hopefully someone here can offer a chemical or method of ridding fire ants that reside in our vegetable garden.

 

[gsganzer]

After ~70 messages with one method or another to kill fire ants, no doubt many or most chemicals recommended work, at least to some degree. I've been using Surrender which definitely does work but my hang-up is that it absolutely should not be used on or near agricultural areas. Hopefully someone here can offer a chemical or method of ridding fire ants that reside in our vegetable garden.

a pot of boiling water on the mound

 

[jaxs]

After ~70 messages with one method or another to kill fire ants, no doubt many or most chemicals recommended work, at least to some degree. I've been using Surrender which definitely does work but my hang-up is that it absolutely should not be used on or near agricultural areas. Hopefully someone here can offer a chemical or method of ridding fire ants that reside in our vegetable garden.

Since it's so expensive and breaks my heart pouring it on the ground,in the garden is one of only a few places I use Jack and sugar.