Kill Fire Ants

Fire Ant Bites

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Fire Ant Bite Treatment

The War on FireAnts

Fireant control can be time consuming and costly. But, hey, this is war!

There are several methods to kill fire ants, some take a few hours, others a few weeks or months. The most important thing to remember when dealing with fireants is to be patient. And make sure you treat or remove all the mounds because if you miss even one young mound, they'll win. Re-infestation will occur in less than a year. Read on to find a fire ant killer.

First, a Word on the Environment

Although it is commonly said that all is fair in love and war, we want to promote environmentally friendly actions. For an example of the issues which go along with fire ant control, please read the side note to the right.

Only Attack the Fire Ants

You want to be very careful to kill only the fire ants and not all of the ants or you will have a far worse fire ant problem in the near future. The indigenous ants are effective at slowing down the spread of the fire ant populations, first simply by their entrenched position, but secondly by reducing food supply. Please take the time to be sure that you are attacking ONLY the fire ants.

Avoid Baits When Possible

Many fire ant bait products affect other ants as well as birds and other creatures. Please be aware of this limitation and only use baits when other solutions do not exist. The good news is that there are, or soon will be, some new baits on the market which only affect fireants and not other species.

If Fire Ants Have Invaded Your Home!

If fire ants invade your house, it is easy to panic. What do you do?? We have had some input from our readers with suggestions for what to do if fire ants have come into your home under the doors or windowsills or through cracks in the wall or foundation.

Clorox Bath Cleaner with Bleach

Only try this method if you have hardwood or linoleum floors. Use Clorox Bath Cleaner with Bleach in a spray bottle. Spray it directly on them and all around where they come inside the house. It is reported that they stop moving within seconds and are dead within minutes. When they are all taken care of, use a wet mop to get the bleach and dead ants off the floor.

Dish Soap or Laundry Detergent

To keep the ants from getting inside in the first place, mix dish soap or laundry detergent in a bucket and pour around the foundation, on the window sills, and on any cracks in the foundation or walls. If it rains, this would have to be reapplied. This solution may also work if sprayed directly on them inside the house. Also, see below.

Natural Fire Ant Control

Below you will find some nontoxic fire ant control methods. We can't vouch for how effective any of them are, but our readers have sent in some of these suggestions which they have found to work. It doesn't hurt to give them a try if you want to use a natural fire ant killer and avoid using chemicals.

We are always interested in hearing other methods of fire ant control. If you have a way you would like to share, please click to email us.

Dish Soap or Laundry Detergent

Make lots of suds with dish soap or laundry detergent and pour it or splash it on the ants. It is reported to kill them in their tracks. It works on all ants. As mentioned above, if you have a problem with ants entering your house, you can pour it around the foundation and on the window sills.

Charcoal Embers

After barbequing, take the burning embers and put them on top of the mound. A reader has reported this worked. But we aren't sure if the ants were killed by being asphyxiated or if they just moved somewhere else. If you try this method, we would be interested to hear if the ants are permanently gone. Please email us with any comments.

Phorid Flies, A Fire Ant's Natural Predator

Phorid flies, a natural predator of fire ants, are not native to the United States but are slowly being introduced. The female phorid fly will fly in and inject an egg into the ant's body in a procedure something akin to stinging the fireant, and fly away in less than a second. The stunned ant appears to be disoriented by the experience, but soon appears to resume working. The injected egg develops in the thorax of the ant for 10 days or so, when the host ant dies and is piled onto the colony's garbage heap, called the midden. The larva then eats its way into the ant's head where it pupates in safety for the next 35 days, emerging from the midden and flying away.

One positive aspect of phorid flies is that they currently seem quite particular with regards to which ant species they will attack and even the size of ant they will attack. However, because the relationship is symbiotic, the use of phorids for population control seems somewhat limited. Regardless, at this time, there are not many phroid populations around and the importation process is appropriately slow.

Diatomaceous Earth

One of the new fire ant control methods we've recently discovered is diatomaceous earth. Diatomaceous Earth (DE) is made up of silicate shells of microscopic sea creatures called diatoms. The shell fragments contain millions of razor sharp edges, which from what we gather, lacerate the exoskeleton or disturb the waxy coating that retains moisture. What little information we have suggests that the diatomaceous earth can lead to dehydration in 12 to 24 hours and will be more successful when it is hotter and less humid.

The issue is that the ants detect the dirt, will attempt to avoid contact with the diatomaceous earth, so simply putting a ring of dust around a mound, or pouring some down into the mound may not be completely effective by itself. In any case, we believe that combing diatomaceous earth with any the other techniques listed below may aid in it's effectiveness.

Please contact us with any feedback you would like to share on the effectiveness of diatomaceous earth.

Dry Ice

Get a 3' piece of 5/8" re-bar. Use it to make a hole to the bottom of the mound. Insert a piece of dry ice into the hole and push it to the bottom with the re-bar. Dry ice is approximately  -110° F. The queen will be killed, along with most of the ants. When the queen dies, the ants die.

Please be careful to wear heavy work gloves to protect your hands from freezing.

Lye

An inexpensive, environmentally safe, natural fire ant killer is to melt ½ bar of lye soap in 5 gallons of water. Wear rubber gloves, protect your eyes and be careful handling the lye as it is highly caustic and can cause extreme burns. Pour this solution in a circle around the ant mound to prevent ants from escaping, then stir them up and drench them thoroughly. This will kill the ants instantly without polluting your garden or harming pets.

Boiling Water

Pouring boiling water on a colony has been recommended as a non-chemical solution to get rid of fireants. But if it does not kill the queen, it will not eliminate the colony.

To use boiling water as a method, start with a sunny, cool day, preferably in the spring or fall when the ants are most active. Pour about 3 gallons of truly boiling water slowly over the mound. Some ants can survive up to 14 days underwater, so the key word here is boiling. The ants die from being scorched, not drowned. But be careful not to scald yourself! Try to collapse as much of the mound as possible while pouring. The ants, their larvae, and their stored food are all scalded and dead within seconds.

Urine

We know this sounds gross, but it is reported to work. Human urine has been known to repel ants, probably all kinds of ants. Try pouring it on or around the mounds and see if they don't flee. (Leave an opening for them to run through!) It won't kill them, but they should move on. If you use it near vegetables, be careful not to get it on the plants.

Spearmint

It's reported that fireants don’t like spearmint. So plant it around areas of infestation. Just remember that spearmint spreads.

Drowning Them

Although this is not completely effective, it may help when only one or two mounds are found. Simply dig up the colony and dump it into a five gallon bucket filled with hot soapy water and let it sit for 24 hours. The temperature of the water and soap will hopefully kill them. Caution: Disturbing the nest will cause the ants to swarm their invader. Take caution to prevent being stung.

Remove Their Scent Trails

Just before a rain, or in the early evening before the ants have gone underground for the night, dig up and scatter them. Fling them as far as you can, DOWNWIND. Their scent trails will be washed out by the rain or dew. Most of them will not find their way back. This may need to be repeated several times.

Scattering Method, Effective During the Winter

In the winter, wait for a sunny day when a cold front has just passed through. The afternoon temperatures should be in the 50s, but will drop below freezing that night.

Wait until the late afternoon when the fire ant mounds are still in the sun, but will be in the shade in one or two hours. You'll find that the ants are all near the top of the mound in the soil which has been warmed by the sun.

Get a wheelbarrow full of soil and a long handled shovel. Dig up the mound down to about two feet or to where you run out of ants. Fling each shovel full down wind as far away as you can, into a shady area, if possible. (Be sure not to fling them upwind!) The mounds will be easy to dig up because the ants have loosened the soil. With the temperature in the 50s, the ants will be sluggish and less likely to sting you.

Use the soil from the wheel barrel to fill in the hole where the mound was. Pack down the soil as you fill it.

The ants in the shade are so sluggish they can hardly move. Any others which are able to make it back to the mound will not be able to get in because you have filled it with packed down soil. When the temperature drops below freezing that night, any ants left above ground will freeze.

One afternoon of hard work should eliminate most of the ant colonies. Any weakened ones which remain can be dealt with in the same manner on another winter day. It may take several cycles of scattering them to completely eliminate them.

Or you could combine this method with the dry ice method described above. Before filling in the hole with soil from your wheel barrel, put a piece of dry ice in it. Any ants that are left will be frozen.

Let Them Fight It Out Themselves

It seems that fire ants from different colonies do not get along. You can try putting this to your advantage by mixing up the ants from different mounds. Colonies can be eliminated, or at least, weakened, using this method. It should work, as long as the area you live in does not have multi-queen colonies. When there is only one queen, the fire ants are territorial and will fight invading ants.

Using a long handled shovel, take a shovel full from mound one and set it aside. Take a shovel full from mound two and place it where you removed the ants from mound one. Then take the ants you put aside and put them into mound two. If you have three colonies, you can do a three way mix. Watch what happens. You should see piles of dead ants in a few days.

VARIATION

A variation on this method takes advantage of the fact that fire ants will venture only 50 to 100 feet away from their colony. If you have a strong colony, take a shovel full from it and mix the ants with a weaker colony which is 150 feet or more away. If you have added an equal or greater number of invading ants, they will kill out the resident ants. The invading ants will not be able to find their way home and will die out.

BROODS OF WHITE BABY ANTS

With both of these methods, if you find a brood (white baby ants), scatter them onto a hot pavement or other hot exposed surface. They will quickly die before they are discovered and rescued or adopted by other fire ants.

KEEP AT IT

You will have to do this mixing of the colonies and scattering of the broods several times to entirely get rid of them. They may, at some point, decide to pack up and move elsewhere.

BALANCING ACT

What you are doing is a balancing act where you are mixing the colonies with the aim of weakening all of them. You may want to leave one strong colony. Then when the rest of them have been weakened, take shovelfuls from the strong one and mix them with the weakened ones to completely eliminate them. Of course, then you have one colony remaining. You can treat it with one of the other methods.

PRECAUTIONS

You don't want to get stung when you are mixing up these colonies. Watch out for the expanding ring of disturbed ants and don't stand there. Also, don't walk on the path of the shovelfuls of ants you have transported. Some may have fallen off the shovel. But once the colonies have been weakened, they are not as aggressive and do not do the mass stinging attacks which fire ants are known for.

AFTER THEY'RE GONE

Once you have gotten rid of the ants on your property, then all you have to do is watch for new, young colonies which appear in late summer or early fall. They look something like a pile of earthworm castings. But if you disturb the pile, a few ants will appear.

In this early stage, you can literally stomp them out of existence.

If you find a large colony which has moved in from a neighboring property, you can scatter is as described above. If it is not winter, they will at least be weakened and may relocate to a less hostile environment.

Commercial Products for Fire Ant Control

Home Defense

From William R. Little:  

I have found that HOME DEFENSE works just fine. It cost just $8.00 per gallon.

I knock the top of the mound off and give them a big squirt!

There is never any more activity at that mound.

Cheap – quick – effective.

I don’t know if the whole underground colony is killed – but it seems they are.

Bayer Advanced Fire Ant Killer Dust

It has been reported to us that this product is quite effective. Put about a tablespoon full on a fairly large mound. If you go back in about 30-45 minutes (maybe an hour for a large mound), you should find handfuls of dead ants. It you dig up the mound, there should be no live ones left.

Garlic

Garlic Barrier is concentrated liquid garlic. Pour it right on the mounds and they are reported to leave immediately and not return. Read about Garlic Barrier.

Fire Ant Bait

To avoid harming pets and children, poison fire ant bait must be used carefully inside the home and outside in the yard. Baits are insecticides that have been mixed with an ant attractant. Worker ants carry the bait back to the mound and share it with the colony and the queen. Although it is effective in killing the queen, baits may take several weeks before the colony finally dies off.

Avoid baits that will kill indigenous ants, as well as other nearby creatures.

Place bait in corners, under cabinets and in closets. Some examples of baits would be:

• Peanut butter and boric acid (15%) in a jar lid
• Equal parts of borax and granulated sugar
• A borax and corn syrup mixture

Be sure to frequently refill the mixture and keep it away from high temperatures, high humidity and intense sunlight. Baits can be rendered ineffective under these conditions.

Bait can also be spread around the nest in a circle. Spread it in a 1-3 foot circle, starting from the base of the mound. Spread it sparsely. If it is too concentrated, it will actually repel the ants.

Ants do not appreciate it when people dump things on their home. (Well, excuse me!) It's always good to remember when using an ant bait, not to dump the product directly on the mound or nest. Rather, broadcast it around and in other areas where ants are seen foraging for food.

Drenches for Fire Ants

Mound drenches are insecticides diluted with water and then trickled down through the mound. They must come in contact with most of the ants, especially the queen, or they are not effective. Ants contacted by the drench die in less than 24 hours. It is best to use drenches in the spring and fall, when temperatures are between 70 and 85 F. In the hot summer months, ants stay deep in their mounds and are hard to reach with liquid insecticides.

Drenches should be used when there is a high risk of human contact or when fireants have invaded home lawns, school grounds, parks and other areas frequented by people.

Don't Bother With These

Grits

There is a theory that fireants will eat grits, the grits will swell up inside their bellies and then the ants will explode. Boom! This is in fact false, and an old wives tale. Ants cannot eat solid foods, and therefore this theory does not work.

When people dump grits onto or near ant mounds, the ants do not die from the grits, they simple build another door (mound) to their colony, deserting the one covered with the grits.

Rice

Don't bother with this one, either. See Grits above.

Gasoline

This method consists of pouring gasoline on the mound and often times lighting it on fire. This method, aside from the obvious hazard to you from an explosion, is illegal and environmentally hazardous, and it is inefficient and ill-advised. It poses a risk of ground and surface water contamination that is irreversible. Not to mention, in warm, dry environments, you find yourself causing more damage than anticipated (i.e., grass fires).

Household Products

Many home products, such as chlorine bleach, ammonia, various detergents, plaster of paris, drain cleaners and so on are said to work in the elimination of fire ants. Few, if any of these are effective for killing fire ants, and most pose a greater threat to pets, children, wildlife, and groundwater. In addition, it is illegal to use these products in a manner inconsistent with their labeling – they are not labeled for control of any type of pest.

Government Intervention

Some state governments have programs for fire ant control.

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