Kill All Fire Ants!
- July 16, 2005
- 12 comments
I declared war today on the hordes of fire ants that have laid claim to our yard. For several weeks, they didn’t seem to be that bad. Every now and then you might catch a long line of them moving from some run-down looking mound to the cat food outside. And if you were unlucky, you’d get stung on the foot or leg if you stood directly on a mound for any length of time.
Today, however, they were out in force as my nephew and I quickly discovered while trying to play a little frisbee golf in the yard. Everywhere I looked, there were mounds of various sizes all throughout the yard, especially in the front. They had even made little ant “highways”. These were small, semi-buried tunnels that would run for several feet from one nest to another. You could clearly see them when they passed over our driveway.
The ants were going nuts too. On almost all the newly renovated mounds, there were tons of ants swarming all over winged fire ants that had climbed to the top of the grass blades. I think they were getting ready to create new queens and mounds. If you happened to stray too close to one of these frenzied masses, you got stung multiple times very quickly.
If you’ve never been stung by a fire ant before, consider yourself lucky. There are worse stings, but when several of them sting you multiple times all over your feet, you’re going to feel it for sure. For a couple days. And they leave ugly, little blisters after a while too.
What brought about this orgy of little, stinging insects? We finally got some much needed rain yesterday. We haven’t had rain in several weeks, and the weather has been horribly warm. When that happens, the ants go deeper underground and leave their mounds unmaintained. When it finally rains, the ants come out in force, rebuilding the mounds and creating new ones.
So after the umpteenth sting on my sandaled feet, I pulled out the big guns. We’ve tried many different kinds of fire ant poisons over the years, but the best one we’ve found is called Results. It’s made from natural compounds, so it’s safer to use around the house and won’t harm our cats and dogs. It opens up a can of whoop-ass on fire ants though. It’s actually fun to sprinkle the powder around a mound, disturb the nest just a bit and then sprinkle more on them when they come rushing out. For a little while they’re looking to kick some ass, but then they start freaking out and going into convulsions. It’s almost mesmerizing to watch hundreds of ants spazzing out and ending up in small piles all over the place.
If fire ants keep calendars, they certainly marked down today’s date as a day of infamy. I ended up nuking around 40 mounds. That’s just in our yard. There must be hundreds of mounds out in our field, but those I’ll let be.
Note: the dead ant illustration was created by Mark Heine
Russ
July 19, 2005
I think you should take the war against fire ants to the fields. If you don’t fight them out there, you will continue to fight them in the yard, as insurgents keep returning to rebuild the mounds that were “nuked”.
I definitely like the new look of the comments section. Much cleaner and easier to read.
Do you know how long it would take, and how much fire ant killer we’d need to kill all the fire ants in our field? We’d need several tons of poison, and a good several weeks to find all the nests. Plus, the field grass is tall, up to my hip in places, so it would be much harder to find the nests.
What we can do though is treat the outside edge of our lawn to keep more ants from infiltrating from the field.
Schampi
July 20, 2005
wow, i really like your site. came across it while googling for blackfathom deep.
i’m not that good in english though, but this article is easy to understand, interesting and fun. I also like the looks. It’s easy on the eyes and good to read.
I will surely bookmark this and come back everytime i can! 
Fire ants, here in Switzerland we call them “rote ameisen” (red ants) but i am not sure if they are the same as yours in the States. Ours are about half the size of the “normal” black ants but kick their counterparts ass, as soon as you mix them up. :-D
Try this: look for a black ants hive. Put on a glove, get a cup full of fire ants (maybe mixed with some dirt of their mount) and spill it over the black ants hive. Now take out your magnifying glass and watch the battle enfold. “Gladiator” or “Troy” is nothing compared 
yeah i know, i seem to be boring, but i’ve done that when i was a little boy and this came into my mind when i stumbled over this article.
Ha! I’ve actually done that with two ant mounds before. It was also when I was a little boy. We were over at a friend of the family’s house who had a lot of land. He brought us to where there were two large mounds of different kinds of ants. He took a shovel full of one mound (black ants) and dumped it onto the other mound (fire ants). It was so cool watching the ants fight to the death with each other.
Our red ants are different than the fire ants, at least around here. Red ants don’t bite you often, but fire ants are evil.
Schampi
July 21, 2005
Huh… they bite even more? Yeah then they are really evil! For me the sting the red ants cause is painful enough, how much more a sting from a fire ant? 
what biologist should research against a pest like this, is a virus that spreads from ant to ant, but doesn’t kill them right away but after an hour or so. As soon as one ant is infected, it will spread and exterminate the whole hive! And to prevent it from spreading all too far, the virus dies after 2 days… lol
I don’t know how much an extermination would affect the “harmony” of the nature, but i’m sure all things have a reason to exist… and not to exist…
Maybe your red ants are the same as your fire ants over there? Here, they’re not. Fire ant stings hurt at first, but it’s the itching blisters that last for a couple days that really suck.
I’ve heard that scientists are trying to cultivate a certain fly that is a natural enemy to the fire ant. They’re trying to introduce it in certain areas to curb the spread of the fire ants. Don’t know how well that will work, but knowing our luck around here, our horse flies would probably kill off those new flies before they can stop the ants.
dude...... from austrailia.....
August 5, 2006
is there a way to kill fireants without chemicals??? i know there’re all natural chems, but i jus tthought there must be a way to do it with everyday stuff…..
on a side note, if you get old-fasioned oatmeal, you know, not instant, and put it near the nest, the workers will take it down to their queen….. when she eats it, she expoleds, and then all the workers leave, cause they have no perpose if life….......
i dunno if it works of fireants, but its funny, and it definatly works with little black ants…...
I see everybody gave so much kind and humane advices! The Green Peace would be definitely glad to read this.
I am sure there are chemicals that prevent ants and other insects from coming to this or that territory by means of creating the invisible borders, showing that this space already belongs to another tribe. It is used for wildlife to keep the animals from entering the territory of the farms I am sure there must be something of this kind for Ants. They will leave your yard on their own
Anyway lots of time passed, will you please advise if you were successful and how do you manage without those lovely animals in your yard :D
It’s clear you’ve never had to deal with fire ants, Marina. Fire ants are aggressive ants. Invisible chemical barriers wouldn’t do a thing to stop them since it would simply be some new rival ant colony to conquer in their collective mind. I also guarantee you won’t be wanting to protect them if you get a bunch of them on your leg biting you all over the place.
The stuff I used on them (which I mentioned in the article) is a natural product, no harsh chemicals. It works great, but only on a mound-by-mound basis. As far as I know, there is nothing that can really keep fire ants out of your area unless you live in a colder climate. The cold is the only thing they don’t like. They have no natural enemies in North America, so they have their way throughout the southern US. I remember reading somewhere that scientists were trying to introduce a certain kind of wasp that is their natural enemy in South America. I’m not sure how that went, but I hope it does well. I hate fire ants with a passion.
I really like the new look and feel of you site.
Oh ya, Death to all Fire Ants!!!