Fire Ants' Nest

This is an abandoned nest. Probably the leaves dried during the fall season and had to be abandoned. It was on the Terminalia catappa (Indian almond tree). Leaves are big.

This is my spathoglottis plicata in bloom now. Notice one fire ant which has come for some work there!

This is the nest. Look how it builds it up from gathering leaves. Here it is on the Ixora plant. I have disturbed it so that a few ants come out to see what the matter is.

This was on another plant. I have ripped it open to see what those buggers are doing inside. They will repair the damaged nest easily in quick time.

Fire ants aren't cute and are extremely destructive the best way to get rid of them that I have found is the Green Light pepper solution for mosquito's. Don't spray it though its more destructive than the ants. Dilute it in a 1/2 gallon of water and pour it on the mound, kills the mound and the ants in it, I use it in my vegetable garden to control them without using pesticides.

Dinu's fire ants are certainly a different variety than those nasty ones that bug us here in the Southeast US.

I don't have a photo of the type we are plagued with Dinu, but they are tiny, live in the ground and if disturbed they swarm all over whatever disturbed them and bite like heck. Cattle have been killed by them and many people are severly allergic to them. I personally know of a person who was killed by fire ants in SC.

Thanks snipe for the idea.

I can't believe that cattle and people can get killed by ants! Certainly ours here are not as nasty as that you quote there. We have a few types of ants here as well and some are very very tiny. Any food particles that fall in the kitchen are quickly surrounded by these little creatures and it is a real circus to keep foodstuff protected. We get a type of medicated chalk with which we draw lines to keep them away. It's quite effective. We also protect the food by keeping the container in a plate of water to prevent the ants from reaching the vessel. Yes, the bites from the ants are quite painful.

You do indeed have the nasty little buggers. The environmentalist brought them into this country because they didn't like farmers using pesticides to control bowl weavels in their cotton fields. The ants are originally from South America where they don't run rampant like they do here seems there is a lizard that is their natural predator that keeps them under control. They brought the lizard into the country to control the ants but the lizards like other bugs that are beneficial to us so now we have 2 problems instead of one. The story is the ants came up out of Mexico but I have several relatives who are cotton farmers who tell me different. The old CYB routine from the environmentalist I'm afraid. The ants are now moving North at a steady pace, they are around my place by the hundred of thousands. I just happened to trip into the pepper solution late in the summer because the ants were devastating my Veggie garden and I didn't want to use poisons near my edible foods. I always saw results within a couple of hours. I tried spraying the stuff once but it is so hot that it burns the foliage and crop so bad that it kills it. The other problem with the ants is they kill all the critters that hibernate underground in the winter frogs, turtles, lizards and such.

Thats what I know about them so you are now in the ranks of us southerners of trying to get rid of them. GOOD LUCK!

I think Dinu is safe (for a while anyway). He lives in India.

Perhaps they will be lucky and they won't spread there like they have here.
Don

Compared to five years back, the number of ants and the number of nests I keep observing are more now. Since the neighbour also has a vast yard full of plants and trees, they are happily thriving in such conditions almost made for them. Even the little ants that trouble us in the kitchen are more. They are found in all seasons. Earlier in winter and rainy seasons we faced less trouble. Now they are there 24x7x365.

Do you have access to pesticides made in the States? There are some brands that have developed all season long broadcast bait to control them. Never tried any myself I have 21/2 acres to control and the stuff is not cheap.

Don

I have another thread going and the subject of fire ants came up and Yuska said she pours boiling water on the mound to get rid of her ants, makes the statement that it really works something you can try thats cheap.

Don

Thank goodness I don't have fire ants, but my house had the small black ants that loved the kitchen.. I work in the restaurant business and I asked a favor (bribed more or less) my restaurant attendant to lay a kill zone around my house much like they do to restaurants. He used pyrethrins (sp) and soaked the perimeter of the house. No ants, no spiders, no living anything getting in now, and I'm not sure how long it lasts, You can plant the plant that naturally makes pyrethrins.. it's a flower, but it will keep pests away.

It's a chrysanthemum.

By all accounts that I can find Fire Ant colonies were not introduced by environmentalists but rather accidentally introduced into the United States in the early 1900s through the seaport of Mobile, Alabama. Cargo ships from South America docking at Mobile unloaded goods infested with the ants; they have since spread from Alabama to the coastal plain and piedmont of almost all of the southeastern states, as well as into California. The ants were accidentally introduced into Australia in 2001, in a similar way.

From what I was told when we lived in TN, is that pouring boiling water on the mound will not destroy the queen. It might kill the other ants up higher, but will not affect her. She lives a foot below ground level. She'll take the ants left and start a new mound in a different location, usually on the same property. When we moved, I was battling 7 mounds. What I was told was to get a product made specifically for Fire Ants. It was granules that you sprinkled when they were foraging for food. They took the granules back to the queen, and not only did she eat it, but the others did also, killing them all. The granules weren't mixed with water, they were left dry. I was also told to never disturb the mound. That only made them abandon the mound and rebuild elsewhere.

It's weaving silk here.

Dinu your photos are beautiful. I don't think the American fire ants spin silk like that. I've only seen them nesting in the ground or building walls, not in plants.

They have spread so much in recent times that every other plant has a nest. Will return with another picture of a larger nest on my neighbour's tree.