fire ants in the bee yard

Help!

Due the the drought and my work schedule I did not get my beneficial nematodes down early enough and
properly. I did manage to use one jar but I think it was mid june when it finally had rained enough to soften
the ground.

I have dumped boiling water on the fire ant mound in my apiary twice, it has now split into 2 smaller mounds.
My normal fire ant cures that are organic are not working,
I used my expired nematodes that I didn't get to put out due to the drought after the boiling water failed.

It is raining again. never got my compost tea mixed. Looks like I need to mix it with orange oil and
molasses to make it work.

Because I run chickens in the apiary, putting an ant bait out is quite tricky. Amdro Ant Block is a good one, but if my hens eat it I'm in trouble. If I don't find another solution soon I will be using it under heavy pond liner to keep the hens out of it. But I don't want it in my organic garden and I have ants there too. I think it is too late in the year even for fresh nematodes, if I could find some. But I could be wrong. Ideas?

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I've heard Howard Garrett (the Dirt Doctor) speak of solutions for fire ants but I didn't pay much attention to the specifics. He's on the radio (and does podcasts) in the Dallas area. He is mainly organic so you might want to check him out.

I know this a wrong sounding answer , like I am being snide or making humor .
But , depending on your circumstances . (as everything does )
You might consider a half dozen Anole .
I use watch the alligator type small Anole lizards eating fire ants in the Arizona Desert .
Like things are it won't eradicate them , but it will slow the ants down some ,

Might ask a naturalist (with ideas) to help you establish a natural lizard colony , You have some there ..

Seems they might establish under the apiary containers similar to the ants ? You might lose a bee or two ,only compared to the 100's of ants the Anole Gecko can eat it might be worth trying.
In Arizona it was tried a few times after a individual was eaten or killed by the huge number an ant colony can sometimes produce .

This message was edited Oct 18, 2013 5:03 PM

I already encourage the lizards, not sure how many varieties I have, but I have some I hadn't seen in DFW before that are pretty "thorny", and started with 1 10 years ago but I think he found a girlfriend

I think the chickens would be hard on small lizards.
I used to use boiling water on shallow hills in sandy soil with good results. But it didn't work on deeper hills in clay soil. I discovered that you can drown them in clay soil. If you have clay soil, Turn the hill into a basin and fill it up with a hose every day you see ants - this is slow, it takes 2-3weeks.
It is possible that you did get rid of the original hill. The small one could be from new queens.

You are right, chickens eat lizards, not that I seem to have less, but where the ants are, there is no cover for the lizards. The rest of the yard, the lizards OWN

I know ants don't like mint, you might try planting it around the pen. I do know that fire ants love to eat the chiggers. I don't let my husband kill off all the fire ants because of that. And while all around me have had problems with chiggers, we have not. I guess it is a catch 22 situation. Qbe

well boiling water and some super sticky stuff on the bee stand have beat it back. Especially since I now have crazy ants aka apricot crazy ants too. Still running down the anthills and dumping 16 quarts of boiling water down each of them