Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Getting rid of fire ants

Anyone know of a readily available and cheap way to get rid of fire ants(other than gas or diesel)? I've tried the Spectracide mound destroyer which didn't seem to work. I've got about a dozen or so mounds in my 1.5 acre back yard and with a mobile 2 yr old son I need to get rid of these bastards. They hurt like a mother....worthless creatures they are!

Spectracide works
You just have to keep treating every mound you see, and accept the fact you can't kill them all

I keep a container on my riding mower so I can treat them as soo as they appear

Past several years of drought did a number on em here. But I doubt you want that tragic an action.

Move farther North.

Once they get started in an area, they are there to stay. You have to stay on top of it and put out poison. You'll kill that mound, but another will pop up somewhere else within a few weeks. Best advice I have is to just be diligent and kill off each mound ASAP before it gets big.

They are worse during wet summers BTW.

gasoline and a match

did you know there is yet another ant that is taking over the south and slowly but surely wiping out the fire ants? For now they are only in a few counties but they will spread eventually and they take out fire ants.

They are harmless to humans but they mass in huge numbers in the walls of houses or barns, and they love to chew up electronics and power equipment.

They are tough bastids from what I understand. You need something very fine they can drag back into the mound like Eliminator Powdered Insecticide

I believe Amdro Fire Ant Bait is the gold standard around here. Doesn't kill 'em by tomorrow but eventually poisons the whole colony.

http://www.amdro.com/Product-Chooser

Drought has done a number on 'em around here too, that and crazy ants.

Birdwatcher

I'll deal with the ants before I move any further north

We've had a mild and wet summer so that would explain the increase in mounds. I hate the things with a passion!

Gasoline is your friend

Crazy ants.

One morning I followed a stream of 'em in a trail fully 70 yards long running down the gutter on our street

But they do kill fire ants, and termites, and also appear to control ticks and chiggers like fire ants do.

Birdwatcher

yea from what I've read we may hate them more

but given I've run into ponds on golf courses more than once thanks to fire ants, I'm having a hard time believing it now

Amdro...a teaspoon next to each mound will do it. You just have to keep an eye out for new mounds.

One of my younger brothers sat down on one when when he was about 1 1/2 years old; sent him to the hospital

golf what is this you speak of?

in my younger days when I thought spending $60 to waste a saturday chasing a ball around was a good thing.

Strangely enough the West Side of San Antonio right where I'm at was one of the first places to get 'em. We've had them for several years.

Extremely mobile colonies. I've left a car in the driveway for a week and had 'em make a nest under the floor mat of all places. And if you leave anything edible out, they'll find it, even bags of dry pet food. Unlike fire ants too they climb, cant hang a hummingbird feeder without an ant trap of some kind.

The flip side is they are small, don't bite, and if you remove the food source they ain't usually a problem, leastways IME.

I'll take them over fire ants.

Birdwatcher

Don't know about fireants, but Golden Malrin flybait kills the hell outta our red ants when sprinkled on a hill......

Advion fireant bait. It contains indoxacarb as the active ingredient. Syngenta markets it, but it is a DuPont insecticide. I did a lot of the R&D with it for use in veggies and row crops. It works great for fireants.

Some guys have use baby powder i hears. An exterminator I know says the powder they use in homes is borex?

Baby powder does nothing, and Borax doesn't kill the Queen, which is the only real way to hurt the colony

With that few mounds, I'd have me a few low country boils and dispose of the boiling water down a hole you poke down the center of the nest. It has worked for me. I don't think they can run from hot water. I always thought that a steam cleaning wand shoved down the mound would cook them too.