I have yet to try the grits..but my Safer bait, by Bayer works very well.. I see today there are a few new mounds so I will be out there!!!
Fire Ants: Any suggestions?
Hate to be a "spoil sport" but Grits do not work.
Debunking Myths
When any material is "dumped" on top of an ant bed, ants are not happy with the situation. They merely stop using the mound and rebuild a short distance away. This is where the methods of dumping a shovel full of one fire ant colony on top of another colonies mound got popular. People saw mound activity stop and drew the false conclusion that they had killed the colony. What actually happened was extreme stress on the ant colony causing them to rebuild in another area. (The ant mound is a door way to the colony -- it is not the actual colony!)
Using grits to eliminate ants became popular when people realized that certain ant baits used small corn particles (grits) as a simple carrier for the ant bait. Thinking that grits (corn) was the killing agent, thousands of people were duped into dumping grits onto ant beds. When mound activity ceased, these people proudly proclaimed that they had found an environmentally safe, easy and cheap method for killing ants. As discussed earlier in this article, the stress of dumping objects on mounds merely stresses the colony to rebuild another mound. In the case of imported fire ants, the mounds are of tremendous size and take quite some time to rebuild, giving the "grit applicator" a sense of victory. Sorry, grits do not kill ants; grits do not make them blow up; grits do not even give them a headache. If grits (corn) actually caused damage to fire ants, they why are so many corn fields riddled with machine crippling fire ant mounds?
I don't care if they killed each other or not. It is a waste of my time, not to speak of the expense, to try and kill fire ants. I have hundreds of mounds, I just want them to die or move to an area where I am not always walking around in my flip flops. Fire ant sting on the toes is ^%$%$#^ painful.
The only thing that has helped with the fire ant problem we have is large pots of boiling water. Even when I dump 3 or 4 big pots of boiling water down the hole on the mound, I still see some live ants coming out of that mound a few hours later. Some of their tunnels go very deep.
Has anyone tried covering the mound with ashes from the fire place? I read somewhere that ants don't like wood ashes. Perhaps the colony just moves someplace else because the ashes bother them when going in and out of the mound.
Vortreker made some good points debunking the myths about fire ants. Anytime you disturb the mound by dumping or adding things, mostly they just relocate and pop up somewhere else. Many ant bait instructions say to sprinkle on the mound, but I found the opposite - sprinkle it 6-12 inches around the base of the mound was much more effective.
Dumping ashes would just make them move again. I tried the shovel full of ants from one colony and vice versa. Yeah, they did slug it out to the finish on both mounds, but in the end they just moved both mounds after the fight. It takes a while for them to build another mound, but they are still underground busily tunneling somewhere else and will pop up later.
From my years of battle experience, when I poison drenched the mounds, I would run a metal bar through the core to open it up so I could be sure to get to the drench to the inner sanctum of the queens base. If I hit the center core, most of the time the rod would sink 1-3 feet with little resistance or effort on my part.
Wildcat, if you really have that many mounds, you definitely need to do an area broadcast with Conserve or Amdro to get some control over them NOW before the spring swarm begins. You'll just have many more new mounds in a month if you don't. Protect yourself for a few bucks, you'll be glad you did. Use the jar idea posted earlier if you don't want it exposed, however, follow the broadcast suggestions I mentioned above and you won't have to worry about it laying around for more than a couple hours.
Chuck can you estimate the FEW BUCKS it will cost for me to do my 40 acres. This ain't no 120x80 lot. When I poison the ants I poison me and all the creatures that share this planet. I refuse to participate in planet destruction.
Wildcat
I understand your predicament, but Conserve (Spinosad) is an organic bait that does not harm the environment, and is endorsed by the Aggie Horticulture program. When I lived on 6 acres on the Guadalupe River money was very tight back then. I observed and learned quickly how to make 1 pound of Amdro last several applications over several months very effectively by sprinkling it very thinly and lightly. Less was often best is what I learned.
Like you, I had an issue for myself, kids and guests walking around in flip flops or bare feet and ant bites to and from the river. It was a personal vendetta to control them. Those critters would even get to my legs with boots and jeans when I was mowing or cleaning up the place.
Not saying you have to do the whole 40 acres, but at least the few acres around the house and areas you frequent is what I intended to mean for peace of mind.
Chuck
I am not in a predicament. Why do you think I am in a crisis. I have lived here 20 years without chemical intervention even during the grasshopper plague of 15 years ago. If it is organic why does it, never mind....... Most of what comes from A&M is aggie chemical research financed by chemical corporations. It is the chemical formulations cast upon our dirt that is causing enormous environmental problems and the aggies in CS have made it worst in the past by recommending chemical poisons and herbicides. Clean water? All the chemicals that are spread on the ground in up in the water. Happy drinking.
Hey.. I know what will resolve the ant problem.... an ANTEATER!!! JUST KIDDING!!! God has these pesky creatures here for a reason.. so I guess we have to live with them too!! hahaha
Wildcat, spinosad really is an organic control. It's a bacterial control that was discovered fairly recently, living naturally in the soil. It's harmless to humans, pets, and wildlife. It won't even harm your earthworms or beneficial insects.
I'm strictly organic myself. I don't use any products that will harm wildlife, or pollute the soil or water table. But there's nothing wrong with using natural predators to help control a serious pest.
pbtxlady it maybe ok but attempting to eradicate fireants here in the thicket is pouring money down the ant hole. It would be a never ending widening circle of ant war. Trying to clear just 2 acres of fire ants is impossible when you are surrounded with hundreds or thousands of rural acres of fire ants. When your closest neighbor is 1/4 mile away no body cares enough about the ants to spend money on them. I have a large area I mow etc. If the fire ants want to live somewhere I mow and I don't want to use it to plant something then the ants can have it. Every so often I try and get them to move but mostly I avoid them like the other day I dumped a compost pot with ants on another mound. Today they were active again. Didn't work. I have been thinking about a making portable hot water heater to experiment with harassing them. I do have native ants also, so an all out poison, even organic, war on ants would be harmful to the native ants. Ants and coyotes, if they don't bite me or mine I can live with them. Of course the coyotes aren't brave enough to tangle with my 3 Great Pyrs anymore. The skunks are not afraid of my dogs I know that for sure.
After losing a horse to fireants after a flood, I researched and am using a method that so far seems to be working the past three years. We take DE and mix it with cinnamon, lots of it. We bucket the top of one mound and transfer it to the removed top of another mound, Then we apply ther DE cinnamon mixture and rebar the mound as much as possible. After a rain we see an influx of fireants but immediately treat and disturb. THey may move somewhere else but as long as it is not on my five acres, I am happy. I also sprinkle the DE cinnamon mixture all around my pig yards, esp when we have babies. Flies and other unfriendlies dont seem to like this mixture either. I was told by a company rep Spinosad was discovered by a researcher while on vacation that noticed a lack of ants on a beach near an abandoned still. He took soil damples and isolated a bacteria that was fatal to some insects. It is the ingredient in Comfortis, the pill you can give dogs once a month to kill fleas. It has won green awards for its safety. I would use this if I needed to with no qualms about its environmental safety. Kathy aka filaluvr
The whole point of using a bait whatever type, broadcast or jars, etc. however you use it, is to regain control of an area that you want to use and maintain as clear of ants as possible. For the most part, fire ants move and invade an area slowly, the exception being a spring swarm or flooding. The objective is to clear an area you use, garden or frequent in a first time assault. To hold the line as they attempt to move inward, you follow up with perimeter treatments moving a little further out each time. Individually treat mounds within your "safe zone" when needed.
The large mounds you see indicate the colony has been there for quite some time undisturbed. Generally it takes even a large colony some time to move that much dirt in a new location. However, with multiple queens in a mound the colony grows exponentially. The point of using a broadcast bait is to "kill the queens" not try to kill the whole mound in one swoop. When the queens die, the mound will cease to exist in a few weeks.
I reiterate again, patience and the principle of less is best spread under the right conditions, will take out a large area for the most effective and cheapest cost. Fewer morsels of attractive bait is viewed as prime food and is always served to the queens first, then down the pecking order.