By Rick Hirsch/County Extension Agent
The recent rains have brought fire ants closer to the surface, both literally and as a matter of concern for area property owners.
Rain doesn’t necessarily make fire ants more abundant. They were always there; they just weren’t as noticeable. When it rains, the ground becomes saturated and the fire ants move their colonies higher, giving some people the impression there are more of them than there were during dry months.
Unless homeowners have been treating regularly, it’s a safe assumption they already have or will be getting at least one fire ant mound in their yard.
– Fire ants in vegetable gardens: There are limited options for control here, so if you are treating with a pesticide, be very careful to read the label to make sure what you are using is safe for use around vegetables. Boiling water will work, but depending on how close the mound is to the plants, you may kill some vegetable roots. I recommend products containing spinosad as either a drench or bait, as it is labeled for use in vegetable gardens.
– Fire ants without visible mounds: Baits are definitely the way to go here. If you can’t see the mound, you can’t drench it properly. Ants take baits back into the next and feed them to the other ants, including the queen. Baits may take up to two weeks to work, so be patient.
– Fire ants in yards: Treat individual mounds and follow up a couple of days later with a broadcast bait. You will eliminate or at least reduce the size of the mounds you treat individually, and the bait will help keep the populations down and knock out the mounds that you didn’t see.
– Immediate treatment: If you’re having a party or outside gathering in a few days, or need to treat quickl6y for some other reason, I suggest using broadcast granules or individual mound treatments or both. If the ant population is really dense, treat individual mounds with a liquid drench or a dust labeled for fire ants. Then use a broadcast granule treatment to provide a barrier to prevent new mounds from popping up, as well as to treat any unseen mounds.
– Long-term fire ant management: if you want to avoid “emergency” fire ant treatments, it’s best to have a treatment regimen and to use baits as the preferred method. If our fire ant populations are fairly low to begin with, you can treat every six months. Treatments in the fall may result in no ants in the spring, in which case you can eventually drop back to once every 12 months. If the mounds are large and fire ant populations are dense, you may need to treat once, then again in six to eight weeks. Then you can return to an every six months routine.
As with all pesticide use, read the label first, apply only what is recommended and wear protective clothing during application.