Basic Tricks on Effective Fire Ant Control

Jan 1
13:02

2013

Ma. Theresa Galan

Ma. Theresa Galan

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Killing fire ants isn't easy because it's important to kill the queen. The queen is most active on a hot day between noon and 2:00 PM. So it's important to plan your course of action during these hours. Fire ants are extremely intelligent and therefore they know how important their queen is, they make sure they have more than one queen. Their main goal is to keep producing queens. That's how they keep spreading and moving across the country.

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Caution is extremely important when dealing with these fire ants. They will attack you,Basic Tricks on Effective Fire Ant Control Articles your family, livestock or family pet in a heartbeat, as soon as they realize you are a threat to their colony. There are several safe natural recipes for killing fire ants.Fire ants tend to nest in a mound of sand or dirt and will defend their colony at all costs when disturbed. You will most likely find more than one queen in their colony since they are always raising queens.

Killing Fire Ants with Hot Water

Prepare 2 to 3 gallons of hot water (it don't have to be boiling). Pour the hot water down the mound. Make sure you do this when the queen is most active between noon and 2:00 PM on a hot day. You going to have to be sneaky and stay away from all the ants until you're ready. This takes about 3 hot water baths before you actually get rid of the queen.

Medicated Body Powder will Control Fire Ants

This method probably won't kill the queen but if you throw a container full of medicated body powder into their nest they will move their nest. So it's a good idea to sprinkle another container full around the area to get them to move to a new residence.

Pure Pine Oil is great for Killing Fire Ants

Use 1 drop of pure pine oil in a quart of water and spray the ants and their nest.

Bucketing fire ant colonies This is one of the simplest ways of dealing with one or two problem colonies. Basically, the procedure is to rapidly dig the mound and a foot or so of soil under the mound and dump it into one or several large buckets. Sprinkling the bucket and shovel with baby powder or cornstarch before you starts keeps the ants from climbing out of them. Remember to tuck your pants into your socks to keep the ants where you can see them.

Once the ants are in the bucket, you can choose to drown the ants or simply to carry them to some place where they are not a problem. If you choose to drown the ants, add a generous squirt of dish soap, water from a hose, and stir to mix the soap throughout the mud in the bucket. The soap breaks the surface tension and drowns the ants much more quickly. It usually takes overnight to kill the ants. In the heat of the summer, they will probably drown faster, but on cool days in the spring, it may take longer. It is best not to fill the buckets more than three-quarters full of ants and dirt so there is room to add the water.

Dig up the soil at a time of day when most of the colony is in the mound. In the spring, the best time is usually mid- to late morning. In the summer, it might be early morning.

So as you can see, there are many natural ways to control fire ants. The main point is, you have to find a way to control them or they will eventually attack either you or someone in your family or your pet. These are mean little buggers and you don't want to ignore them once you notice they have started a colony close to you home.

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