Horrible red ants

What are these ants, anyone know? It's hard IDing them from black and white drawings from the extension office website. Sorry the pictures aren't better, but they're really fast!

They don't appear to make mounds anywhere.
They are very fast.
They have a nasty bite.
They are colonizing rapidly!

I've never seen these ants before this year, and they are all over our property. Every day I notice them streaming into new areas of the yard, carrying eggs and pupa. It's awful.

First, a group from a distance:

One by itself:

Carrying a pupa.

Another angle of pupa-toting ant.

Two of thousands:

Could this be "your" ant? Nasty creatures.

http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?si=169&fr=1&sts=

Pins, that link's not working for me.

This message was edited Jul 20, 2004 5:16 PM

Now that's strange, because I just clicked it and got the page right away. At any rate, go to Google and enter the species of the ant I THINK it is: Solenopsis geminata

This looks a good bit like your ant. You might want to go to www.issg.org and type in Solenopsis geminata to get to the page. It looks like your ant - ground dweller - no mounds - red & brown, nasty multiple bites.

They're similar-looking, but mine don't have the huge heads. Dave Shetlar, one of Ohio State's entomologists, replied to my e-mail and said they look like one of the carpenter ant species.

Is there any way to get rid of those ants?

The ants in these pictures look awful similar to yours:

http://fireant.tamu.edu/materials/graphics/photo/phototxt.html

Someone recently told me on a thread to spread around dry grits. They will carry them back to their nests, and hopefully one will get to the queen. When they eat them, they die. It's worth a try. If you try it, let me know if it worked or not.

I don't believe we get fire ants in Ohio, at least not in our part of the state.

There are ways to get rid of them, and we're going to have to do something. I was outside today and saw scores of them. They kill off plants by digging around their roots so they dry out...I see evidence of this in the places where they're most concentrated. Yuck.

I think the workers are carrying empty pupa cases, not pupas. I read they remove them from the nest and discard them.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2064.html

Regarding the grits, I believe that's an urban legend (like chewing gum for moles). It wouldn't harm my garden or pets to try them, but I don't put much stock in them, either.

Well, it was on another thread, and the member said she'd done it and that it does work.

The thing is, people try different home remedies, and they appear to work...But you never know if there was some other environmental variable that was really the deciding factor. The jury's out on so many home remedies...You can find folks who swear by them, and folks who do research and post findings disproving the same remedies. Who knows what truly works in the end! Whatever works, works, I guess! :)

It was me, GW!!!

I put instant grits in the beds and it has helped a lot, I swear!!

And I have never tried giving a seagull an alkaselzer. : )

It doesn't get rid of them but it cuts down on them a whole bunch. I only sprinkle every so often though. You need to get rid of them, I suspect.

An exterminator told me once that breaking up the beds stresses the nest and they will separate and make bigger and better nests.

A box of generic instant grits is about $1.49. Dowse the buggers and see what happens. Plus this~
I have never sprayed anything but leaves with DE but it is supposed to help. I would apply it dry to the holes where they walk. Great article:
http://ighawaii.com/naturally/naturalanimal/de.html

One warning though (and I need to post this on its own thread) be carefull with DE if you wear contact lenses. It will scratch your eyes if you do not wear protective eye gear. And don't breath it. Otherwise, its organic and safe.

I have read that about DE - and that makes sense because it pierces the insects' exoskeletons. What I dont understand is, what are grits supposed to do to ants?

http://www.pestproducts.com/grits.htm

This message was edited Jul 21, 2004 5:14 PM

Pins, the ant you think it might be has a square head as were the one GW has is triangular

Kimberly, supposebly the grits expand and they explode. Sounds icky, I know. If the grits get to the queen, it's all over, supposebly. And they do feed their queen.

But read that link above regarding the exploding ant theory.

I didn't read it before because it said "pest products" and I didn't know it had to do with grits. Very interesting.

I guess what I'd do is give it a try, as Daisy said, as grits are cheap. Ya never know.

True. But like the article said, dumping them on the mound itself would be counter productive because these ants go out and make new mounds if theirs is disturbed. So, even applying something organic has to be done in a scientific way, LOL.

I think what I've heard is you don't dump them on the mound, you just scatter them around, and they then cart them off into their nests, one by one, "as the ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah"....................

Grits are just a hoax.. In south GA, the ants would love to be fed grits for breakfast...LOL

Larkie

Its not the corn, its the processed results of corn (instant grits) that affects them.

see this article:
http://fireant.tamu.edu/research/arr/category/non-chemical/97-01pg4/97-01pg4.pdf

That's all I know. Well, that and I still have some packages left and I haven't broke the bank yet and my ants are down but I am spraying DE every so often too but that just got rid of the aphids they were farming.

More suggestions maybe:

http://dirtdoctor.com/forum/archive.php/o_t/t_2103/orange-oil-amt-and-grits.html

If you've been treating with both grits and DE, it's most likely the DE that's effective. In controlled experiments, different methods are tried independently (including a control group which has nothing done to it) and results are compared. That's the kind of evidence I love reading about.

The TAMU article is interesting...It concluded this:

"Because no colony was eliminated by either treatment, no statistical analysis was conducted on these data.

Results of this no-choice, laboratory study do not support the use of instant grits or Malt-O-Meal as an effective treatment for eliminating colonies of the red imported fire ant"

next you are going to say something awful about Santa Claus, aren't you.......... : P

I'm sorry....I'm just a cynic, I guess. If I'm going to tackle something, I read up on it a lot, sometimes so much that I don't take any action (the ants will colonize our whole house before this is all said and done, you just watch!).

P.S. Santa ROCKS. He always brought the good toys, LOL.

LOL- he loves our grits!!

In Pakistan we have alot Ants like these in our gardens and other places.

Feed the ants grits so they can explode! Sounds fairly simple to me.

This article shows some interesting control measures:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_LH059

Are yours FIRE ants Kimberly?

Looks like only the back half of their hind ends have been dipped in chocolate. Maybe those are 'appetizer' ants Kimberly. LOL.

My mom said she tried chocolate covered ants when she was a kid. :X Guess I wouldn't mind if I didn't know. I like chocolate covered expresso beans...They're crunchy.

Hi Gardenwife,

Boy do i feel sorry for you.....My hubby and I just recently moved into our newly built home in Florida....I was told that there were no RED ANTS on the property that it was treated when the sod went down.....they were right on that score....i was digging a hole for a spider plant in my back yard and all of a sudden to my horror i feel something burning i look down and there were HUNDREDS of these little vermints biting my toes and feet...i screamed carl comes running sees my feet, gets the hose tries to get as many as he could off,,im totally freakin out even my neighbors came over....i quik took 2 benadryl in case of an allergic reaction, when i dug the hole there is a lot behind us i mustva disturbed their nest i was never so mortified in my life....those bites itched me for weeks...i soaked in an AVEENO oatmeal bath everynite....we have since treated the property and haven;t seen too many...

i want anything dug now i have carl do it.....

love FLORIDA HATE THE BUGS!!!!!! BIG SPIDERS AND SNAKES.

i am origianlly from ny.....

thanks for listening....

luv ya
cindy

floridagurl46, my skin crawled reading your post.

Gardenwife, my friend is bringing me some mantises. Would you like some see if that works?

Do mantises eat ants? They eat other bad stuff, so sure, bring 'em on! :D

We have the tiny red ants, too. The places they bite feel numb afterward. I was standing in them and didn't know it...Felt something and looked down to see dozens of the tiny nasties on my foot. Argh!