There are
numerous ways to manage fire ants, but they are often broken into two
categories- broadcast treatments and individual mound treatments. Individual mound treatments are used to treat
one mound at a time and can be labor intensive and may result in more pesticide
being spread into the environment.
Broadcast treatments spread product (granular or bait) over a large
area.
Individual
mound treatments include pouring boiling water onto the mound, using
insecticide mound drenches, spreading insecticide granules onto the mound and
watering them in, sprinkling insecticidal dusts on top of the mound or using
bait-formulated insecticides around the perimeter of the mound. There are also many “home remedies”, but be
advised that many of these do not kill fire ants. Many home remedies make the fire ants move to
a new location (often 1-2 feet away), but do not kill the ants.
Bait-formulated
insecticides most often consist of a de-fatted corn cob grit coated with soybean
oil; the soybean oil is where the active ingredient (what kills the pest) is
dissolved. Worker ants collect bait as a food source and take it back to the
colony to share with other ants, including the queen. Depending on the active ingredient, the bait
may cause the queen to die or be unable to produce viable eggs, which gradually
kills off the colony. When using baits,
results are often slower to observe when compared to individual mound
treatments, but can provide 80-90% suppression for 12-18 months. A bonus to broadcasting baits is that the
amount of active ingredient is generally very small, which places less chemical
into the environment.
With any
pesticide treatment, read and follow all
label instructions. Make sure to
water in the pesticide if the label instructs to do so. Failure to water in chemicals when
recommended by the label does an inadequate job of killing the ants. Baits should not be watered in or used before
a rainfall event; baits will not be picked up by ants if they get wet.
Posts
