Firing The Fire Ants!

A year ago this past September, we suddenly started getting gigantic ant hills in our yard. I got some ant stakes, trying to get rid of them; but the ants thought the stakes were amusing and buried them. My 12 year old said, "Maybe they’re fire ants, mama!"

Well, we live in Middle Tennessee, and I figured we were too far north for fire ants, so I went out with my son to look at the ants. They were small and brick red in color. They didn’t look like fire ants to me. (Of course, I had never seen them before, but I had this idea they were bright red.)

My first clue that they were fire ants was when I stupidly poked the mound with a stick. Thousands of fire ants came dashing up the stick to start stinging (or biting?) my hand! Arrrgh!! "Yep," my son said, "Those are fire ants."

I was pretty sure they were, but my dad suggested I call the county extension agent to make sure- and to find out what the best way to kill them would be. So I did, and before he could come out, my dog decided it would be a good idea to "mark" the mound.

"Yep," my dog said, "Those are fire ants". Or he would have said that, if he spoke English and wasn’t so busy licking his wounds.

The next day, the county extension agent came out and took one look at the mound. No stick poking was necessary- he said, "Yep, those are fire ants", took a sample and suggested I get some Amdro to kill them. He warned me that using grits would not work to kill them for very long, and using gasoline to light a fire under their, um, feet was dangerous and very bad for our groundwater.

I bought the Amdro and lo and behold, I didn’t see the ants again. Until a week ago, when a giant ant mound appeared in my yard. "Yep," I told my husband, "Those are fire ants." Time to make a trip to the Co-op!

[photo credit: Stephen Ausmus]