Fire Ants Are Back!

[fritz]

Enough of this with Clinton and politics! We have a bigger problem in this country (at least in the South) with the damned ants that have invaded us like the yankees did many years ago.

 

I speak of the fire ant (and don't ask me to spell the latin name for it, we have another name for it down here, and it ain't latin). He is back with the recent rains we have had. Which goes to show that a drought has at least something going for it.

 

I have a nest starting just outside the back door. Last night (for lack of anything better) I sprayed it with oven cleaner. Now, that is nasty stuff! But tonight, the ants just moved over to the side. So I sprayed them with flea killer. And pissed on the nest, just to make them angry (hey, it's my way of expressing myself to them).

 

I suspect that tomorrow the ants will just move over a bit more. OK, time then to bring out the big guns. I doubt that my big game rifles would bother them, but maybe a shot of diazinon will. I doubt that you can even buy the stuff anymore, but I have some.

 

I have some other stuff also, but I better keep my mouth shut on that.

 

Forget Clinton, let's talk about what's trying to take this nation by subterranian action! You yankees just wait! They will be there before you realize it.

 

The South will rise again! We have recruited the ants.

 

fritz

[roscoedoh]

Fritz,

 

The best thing I know to kill fire ants is Orethene powder. You know - the stinky white powder. I don't know how it works, but the stuff is hell on fire ants. All it seems to take is a fine dusting and the nest is gone in a day or two. I have even area dusted a large swatch of my "yard" with it before and eliminated the ants from a 6x6 area. If you can't get diazanon, get some of this stuff. And stock up too; it works so well the EPA will probably ban it next year.

 

Jason

[Horsefly]

Man we're covered up with them too! They played hell on my garden killing okra plants and eating holes in the cantalopes to get at the juice.I wish I could find something to use on them in the garden.I'm no naturalist at all,but just can't make myself use the good stuff around stuff I'm going to eat.Triacide from Home Depot is working good around the house as long as it's watered in,and plays hell on chiggers too.Jerry

[fritz]

Yes, I'm surprised they haven't taken it off the market yet. It does work well, but is a bit expensive for large areas. We use it on the golf course (even though it isn't labeled for use on them).

 

I remember that it came out many years ago, and you could smell the stuff in the store, right through the can. When I was farming yet, I bought up what I thought was a lifetime supply of a lot of the old products that worked well (and cost less). But you never can buy eniugh to last that long.

 

I remember using a product (the name escapes me now) that worked very well on fire ants in young corn seedlings. It wasn't labeled for it, but it did the job on all kinds of soil insects. You treated the seed with it in the planter box. I also remember the Extension Service telling me that fire ants didn't eat on seedling corn, I must have some other insect doing the damage. When I showed the guy from A&M the ants in the row of damaged corn, he then put out a paper on fire ant damage in corn seedlings!

 

And I knew that without having attended A&M! Sometimes you just have to work a bit to convince an Aggie that it ain't all in the book (yet).

 

I just remembered the name of the granules--lindane. And it was already supposed to be banned when I used it. The feed store guy would go around back and sell me a few cans of it.

 

The latest approach is the use of the phorid fly from Brazil. There was a story on Texas Parks & Wildlife TV recently of an experiment in Bee County, Tx (30 miles from me) using phorid flies released on mounds there. But due to the extremely hot and dry summer last year, few of the flies survived. It seems the climate in Brazil is much different than S. Texas.

 

Anyway, the flies that did survive did a good job on the ants. We just need more flies, but they are hard to raise on a scale that would amount to a full scale assault on the fire ant. The fly lays an egg in the body of the ant, and when the larvae grows it works its way to the head of the ant. The ant dies and the head falls off. In about two weeks the larvae emerges from the skull as a new fly.

 

What a way for an ant to die!

 

fritz

[AzRednek]

Don't know how well it will work on fireants. I've had pretty good success on black ants. Mixing Roach Proof powder (Boric Acid) and pancake syrup and leave it near the nest. It's slow the queen has to eat it and the nest dies. From what I read on the net it depends on how the queen ant is fed. Some ants feed the queen by worker ants digesting the food and feeding the excrement to the queen. Some ant colonies grow mold for the queen and most others simply bring the treats in and feed it to the queen. If the syrup starts disappearing chances are good it will work. About 20 years ago I got rid of a fireant colony by pouring a box of battery acid slowly down the entrance. Neighbor claimed all I did was move them into his yard. Might have or possibly it was a new nest. Saw a lot of fireants nests when I was a kid in the 50's. Back then we had DDT and it really worked especially on the subterranean termites.

[Horsefly]

AZ,I think we're talking about 2 different kind of ants.We had some ants here in North Texas we called fireants that were a big ant and kinda of orange-red that I haven't seen since the 50's or 60's.These dang fireants we have now came from Alabama and Mississippi off banana ships from South America.We've only had them here for maybe 20 years,but fritz has had them longer than that.They're little ants about the size of what we call a piss or sugar ant,and the are cazillions in a mound.When you kick a mound,the ground will turn black.They've killed our native red ants,and now our hornytoads are gone because they were what they made their living on.I have seen 2 newborn calves blind because the fireants stung their eyes and have had my a/c condensor damaged because of the ants getting in the contacts.The ants are drawn to moisture like the calves eyes and youg plants with lots of sap and electricity.I hate the bastards.A&M had an article in the paper a few years ago that said they'd never cross the Red River because the climate starts getting cooler and they can't tolerate it,but my buddies from work that live in Oklahoma now have fireants.Jerry

[AzRednek]

I stand corrected, I assumed red ants were fire ants.

[roscoedoh]

The thing that worries my about the Phorid fly is the risk we run of upsetting the natural balance by killing all the ants here - both native and imported. Seems like everytime we introduce another non-native to combat a non-native we end up shooting oursevles in the foot. Ants actually do perform a very real, but unseen service to us by keeping the bug populations in check and carting off refuse and dead critters that nothing else will touch. We need some ants, but dog gone it we do not need the fireants; but we cannot dispense with ants altogether.

 

AZ, what we have are called imported red fireants. You may not have many of them out in Arizona, because the climate is quite a bit different and good bit drier. They love pet food, fish bait, trash bins, pad-mounted transformers, and my trailer house. They're about 2mm's long and sting far disproportionate to their size. They're a bloody nuisance and they're everywhere!

 

Jerry, I've never seen a horned toad in the wild. When's the last time you saw either a horned toad or a box turtle in the wild?

[ShooterTom]

Jerry, At my sister and brother-inlaws place they have an aerobic septic system. The man who does the mantainence on it, told them to put a couple insecticide cattle ear tags in the pump housing to keep the fire ants out.

 

They went up to the feed store up on 377 and bought some. I wonder if its ok to put them in an AC condenser? I had a large mound next to mine and they were also going up into the foundation of the house almost looked like subterainian termites there were dirt trails that almost looked like mud tubes. I may try those hang tags in the AC.

 

Tom

[fritz]

"The thing that worries my about the Phorid fly is the risk we run of upsetting the natural balance by killing all the ants here - both native and imported"

 

The way I understand it is that the phorid fly only targets the fire ant. They have been in Brazil for years and never harmed the other ants. We have to do something because the fire ant has no other natural enemy.

 

I would give up all the other ants (at the risk of putting exterminators out of business) to get rid of the fire ant. But I believe we can do it better with the phorid fly. At least it's a chance. But not in hot dry climates. Maybe East Texas would be a better place to test them. Any of you fellows over there willing to encourage the research on this? The reason for the test being done in Bee County is because a group of ranchers just got fed up with the status quo.

 

Something has to be done.

 

But it won't matter as much to us ranchers if Perry puts us out of business first with his beeg highway to nowhere. Let the fire ants make all the mounds they want on that "state owned" land!

 

fritz

[roscoedoh]

Fritz I am in firm agreement with you that something must be done about all the ants but to be quite honest, I have not had a chance to research the Phorid fly solution and do not know much about it. If the flies only target the fire ant, I'm all for them and I sincerely hope they import them by the carload lot till we see the end of this ant infestation.

[Horsefly]

Tom,the tick tags sound like a good idea.I took the top off my a/c unit and poured some of the Triacide inside and haven't had a problem again.If they're making a trail into your house,your going to have to get a fireant bait,something they feed to the queen,because they will nest in the house.They're attracked to water,like Jason said ,dogfood,dry cereals and such in the pantry,and they get into your cloths after fibers.Once their in your house,they're pure hell to get out.I saw them once going up the wall into my deer mount,so I got my magnifying glass and saw the ones comeing back down had the smallest hair fragments.The chemicals to control them have been so watered down they barely work,so I'm not afraid of saturating around my house with the stuff,but don't care much for it in my garden.

I saw a hornytoad about 5 years ago down near Juntion on our deer lease,and my brother caught one 5 or 6 years ago in the Pecos Widerness Area while we were deer hunting.A couple years ago I saw one at my cousins ranch at Crowell Texas.

The tick tags should be good to put in stuff your going to store.Good idea!!! Jerry

[usmc0332]

Every year we have ant problems. I buy diazanon crystals and shake them around the house, and mist them in with water. I then take a shovel and hunt for nests. I stick the shovel into the nest and administer a good sized dose of poison into it. Then I soak the works down with the hose. Seems to at least shut them down for a while.

[fritz]

Diazinon, if you can still buy it, is good for fire ant control, and cheap too.

 

Notice I said for control. We will never be able to eradicate the fire ant, just like brush, but we can control it. And it gets more expensive all the time.

 

Too bad plain old gasoline poured down the nest doesn't work better, that is the cheapest chemical we can buy right now.

 

But give the oil companies (and their puppets) enough time, and that will change. Right now, unleaded gasoline is the cheapest thing to clean a paintbrush with. I'm talking about real paint, not that crap made out of water.

 

fritz