Courtney,

Sounds like you are having quite a week!

THE ORGANIC WAY:

There are organic methods of fire ant control that have been proven to be effective. The organic products currently recommended as being most effective contain Spinosad, which is dervied from a naturally occurring soil-dwelling bacteria called Saccharopolyspora spinosa. The bacteria kills susceptible species by causing a rapid excitation of their nervous system. After the insects ingest the spinosad, they die within 1 to 2 days.

Spinosad products have been tested and shown to have low impact on mammals, birds, the environment and beneficial predatory insects. However, it can be toxic to bees, so don't apply it when bees are actively foraging.

I have seen Spinosad in at least 2 products that are available to the general public. One is an insecticide called Conserve. The other is in an insecticide called Monterey Garden Insect Spray.

If you apply a Spinosad product directly to the area where you are seeing fire ants, it should have little effect on the native ants on the other side of your property. I have seen the Monterey Insect sprays at Wal-Mart for the last few years.

CHEMICAL ROUTE:

I prefer to go the organic route, but sometimes circumstances are such that you need to use a chemical to get the desired result quickly, and I understand that. Sometimes you have to go the chemical route because effective organic products are not available in your area.

If you can't find a spinosad product locally and must instead go the chemical route, the chemical product I believe is truly effective is called "Over and Out". It has been on the market for several years as a broadcast treatment and there is a new 'Over and Out' mound treatment on the market this year.

We chose to use the Over and Out broadcast treatment in 2004 when we received over 12" of rain in the month of June and fire ants popped up everywhere....they were in the dog dishes outside, they were all over the yard, they were in the barn and they were even coming into the house. It was hard for me to use chemicals, but spinosad was not labeled for fire ants at that time and I had already tried other organic products with virtually no positive results. The Over and Out really worked for us. Those fire ants were gone in a short time. BE SURE to water it into the ground really well. One of our dogs kept trying to lick it up off the ground. Of course, now that there is a mound treatment available, you only have to treat the mounds and not the entire yard.

BACK TO ORGANICS: There are many other organic methods recommended, including the use of beneficial nematodes (expensive!), pyrethrins (toxic to felines), diatomacious earth (not very effective on fire ants), citrus oils (moderately effective but can burn foliage of nearby plants), and the old hot, boiling water treatment in which you pour boiling water on/into the mounds.

Good luck,

Dawn

Thanks again Dawn!!!

I knew I'd get good advice from you :))) Since I've only seen 3 small mounds, I'm going to try the boiling water tonight and see what they look like tomorrow.

We planted 7 holly trees in our front foundation beds, and I've been seeing honey bees all over them for the last week!! I was excited to see them, especially with all the talk about them being killed in masses by pesticides lately.

Until the fire and try invading the house, I'll be sticking to the organic methods.

I ran into a mound of them when I was about 4 years old and spent a couple days in the hospital afterwards. I still remember Dad pouring lighter fluid on the mound and dropping the match on them. I'd try that here, but the main mound is right next to a large flower bed full of mulch, I'd hate for something to go wrong. And with the way my luck has been....

EEEK! I hadn't heard the fireants had reached Oklahoma City yet.

Lisa

Lisa,

Really? So, they aren't widespread in OKC yet? We have had fire ants here in southern Oklahoma ever since we purchased this property in 1997. I had no idea they hadn't worked their way across the entire state already.

I wouldn't say that we have a heavy infestation of them yet, but they are definitely here. After a heavy, heavy rain we will have a few mounds pop up here and there. They are really only a problem maybe 1 year out of every 3 or 4 years.

Dawn

Dawn: I hadn't heard any stories about them being here. I live in the northwest part of the city.

I got bit by one in Dallas, it was not any fun!

Lisa

I'm in the SW corner, just south into Cleveland County. I can promise you, THEY'RE HERE!!

BTW - the boiling water, although fun to watch, didn't really do much. I'll be headed out to find a spinosad product tomorrow, and hopefully chase them out of here!

Courtney,

Some people claim to have luck with the boiling water, others say it doesn't work. I haven't tried it because I am so klutzy I would probably spill it on myself. :)

My dad's method years and years ago was to pour gasoline down the hole in the center of the mound and then light a match. Of course, that is highly dangerous and also is not good for the environment. Didn't kill all the ants either!

Dawn

There is a small wasp that has been imported that lays their eggs in fire ants only and kills the ants. you might see if your county agent knows anything abt them.
vickie

I did call the county extension office, and the best advice they could give was using Ortho Bug-B-Gone. Since we have a small child and a small dog, I wanted to try something less toxic first.

I found a HUGE mound of them today! Outside our back gate, our builder left us a big pile of top soil that he removed when he was grading the lot. We've been using it here and there to fill low spots, etc... well, when I went back to get a wheelbarrow full of dirt I discovered that the fire ants have pretty much made it their home. The dirt pile was rather large, and it is now covered in ant hills.

I wonder how they mirate... We've used that dirt pile as recently as a month ago, and there weren't any ants at that time... Do they go deep underground during the cooler months, and once it rains get chased up to the top?

Oh, like I really care, I don't plan on letting them hang out much longer. :)

Hi Vickie,

As far as I have been able to learn, the research with the phlorid fly is still in the research stage and the use of the fly is currently limited to university-affiliated researchers. Whether it ever will be made available to the general public remains to be seen, although the results seem promising, so I hope it makes it onto the market here as a beneficial insect one of these days. Researchers in Texas have reported some success with it in controlling fire ants, but they will research it for a long time to be sure there are no unintended consequences.

Courtney,

They do like to live mostly underground but pop up in mounds on top of the soil whenever there is enough soil moisture to irritate them.

When my son was 2 years old he was playing in the puddles at my parents' house after a rainstorm and got into a mound of fire ants. My dad came running frantically up the road with a screaming child covered in dozens of fire ant bites. I immediately gave him liquid Benadryl and made a paste of baking soda and water to apply to the bites. Both the Benadryl and baking soda paste worked quickly, but he was miserable for a while.

Most people only get those little raised up sores from fire ant bites, but one of my son's childhood friends was highly allergic to them. Instead of those little raised-up pustules, he got huge purple hive-like sores that looked like small purple plums imbedded just under his skin surface.

I despise fire ants!

Dawn

I have a friend who is a camp host at the lake. She is an older lady and she uses bleach on ants of all kinds. I don't know if it kills them but it makes them leave for sure.
I have not tried it in my yard.
A couple of days ago I got into the fire ants here. I didn't even know they were there. I stood by one of my veggie beds and pulled out a stray seedling or two and then walked half way across the yard before I felt one and then of course several right after. I had about 15 to 20 on my feet and ankles and getting into my shoes.
It took two or three applications of Benedryl and an hour or so before it started to get better.
I noticed yesterday they are back in my bulb bed again this year too. Grrrrr.
And I am like Dawn I just assumed they were all over by now.
G.M.

I've had the misfortune of getting into them two times in my life. Living up North most my life, I didn't have much of a chance to encounter them. My Dad was in the Navy when I was really young, and we lived in Charleston SC. I don't remember much, but my parents say that my whole body was covered in bites (even in my ears and my nose). They say that I looked like I had the chicken pox. I spent a couple days in the hospital because I had an allergic reaction to the stings.

As a teenager I was visiting my Aunt in Texas, and I met up with the ants again, that time they only got my feet. I didn't go to the hospital that time, but my feet were so swollen, I couldn't even put on a pair of flip-flops.

I wouldn't have thought about using Bendryl. I'll keep that in mind... just in case.

I found some Fire Ant killer today. It's not the spinosad that I was hoping for, but DH was getting tired of being dragged around the garden center at Home Depot in the rain. That man has the patience of a saint, unless we're in the garden center. It works the other way around when we're in the lumberyard, so I completly understand. LOL!

GM - I'll let you know if the stuff that I got works on the ants. It's supposed to kill the workers and the Queen, and it's SUPPOSED to work within 6-7 days... I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Courtney

I didn't realize fire ants had made it as far north as OKC, either. I saw a program on fire ants this past winter and it showed where cold weather would kill them off, so I assumed they were limited to the most southern counties of OK. I just moved from Murray county, and we didn't have them on my acreage. I am now in Garvin County and we don't have them here yet either, thank God.

Courtney, I can certainly sympathize with you. I got stung (bitten) at least 1000 times by fire ants about ten years ago. I probably should have been hospitalized too. I looked like I had leprosy, diaper rash, and chicken pox all rolled into one. :( I was too embarrassed to even go to a doctor! My "attack" involved a birthday celebration, gambling, alcohol, and peeing on the side of the road in Tyler, Texas! LOL I had 68 bites alone on one hand and arm below the elbow. I won't go into the nasty details other than to say they nearly killed me. Since that incident, I am highly allergic to wasp and bee stings. I haven't been stung by a fire ant since but would imagine I am allergic to them as well. I guess my body developed an allergy to the toxins because wasps nearly kill me now. I never kill ants in my yard. I have a "live and let live" philosophy on most creatures. But if I ever get fire ants on my property you can bet I will nuke them with whatever it takes to get rid of them! I hate them more than anything on earth!

Dawna what a totally HORRID story about the fire ants! Oh my...that was a serious ordeal you went through! I would certainly agree with using anything possible to get rid of them. I try hard to not use chemicals...and still have not sprayed my poor rose bushes. I keep hoping they will be strong enough to withstand the attacks of insects which keep coming and coming.
But when it comes to some things I draw the line and pull out the chemicals if I can't find any other method which will work.
I do not blame you one bit.
G.M.

Dawna,

What a perfectly awful experience you had with the fire ants! That is absolutely the worst fire ant tale I have ever heard and I am just glad that you survived. (That must have been quite a birthday celebration, at least prior to the encounter with the fire ants.)

We had a local resident in Love County who passed away last summer after he was stung by several bees. He was in full cardiac and/or respiratory arrest and the paramedics couldn't save him. He was in his mid-30s and knew he was highly allergic to the bees, so I can only assume that he didn't carry an Epi-Pen with him. It was so sad.

Y'all know I try to be as organic as possible, but I will whip out the chemicals in a heartbeat to deal with Fire Ants. The ONLY product we have ever used that was truly effective is called Over and Out. There is one treatment for mounds and one for broadcasting. You can't use it near edibles, though, so in the veggie garden I use Serenade.
I didn't even want to try Over and Out, because we had previously tried every fire ant product on the market and nothing worked. So you can imagine my relief when this one product actually performed as promised.

When we moved here from Texas, I was hoping the colder winters would keep the fire ants down there and not let them move up here. Sadly, we discovered before we even built our house in 1999 that the fire ants were already here. However, I do think the cold keeps them down somewhat because we don't have all that many here compared to what we had in Fort Worth.

It is my understanding that they are slowly adapting and developing more and more cold-hardiness as time goes on, so it is anyone's guess as to how far north they may eventually go.

Our weather radio went off at 9:30 this morning to tell us that Jefferson and Garvin counties were under a tornado watch unil 6 p.m., and it went off a little while ago to tell us the watch was extended to 10 p.m., so I hope y'all are safe there in Garvin County today and tonight. (WE have our weather radio programmed to alert us to watches/warningns not only for Love County but for the 6 nearest Oklahoma counties and 3 nearest Texas counties. Storms aren't going to sneak up on us!

Dawn

How funny!! The stuff I ended up getting is Over and Out!! I sure hope it works... looks like I'm going to have to wait awhile...the 7 day forcecast shows rain every day - oh well free water for our sod :)