Fire Ants..... mass suicide??

Scrambler82 · Dec 27, 2019

Is the Amdro Ant Bait any good, it sounds like it works but... ?

JerryK · Dec 27, 2019

When you go to bed tonight, make sure you cover up all your orifices. They are used to attacking other nests/colonies via that route..... Heck of a way to get woken up.

Diggin It · Dec 27, 2019

I can't find anything on it right now with a quick search, but I've read that they're extremely territorial and mounds have been known to invade and fight each other. You may have seen the aftermath of an ant war.

stuckmotor · Dec 27, 2019

There was great die off of fire ants around here several years ago. I didn't notice any dead ants but my brother said they were flowing in the streams of runoff that come after storms. I did notice that there didn't seem to be any fire ants around for months afterwards. Following is a link describing the work of predatory wasps that are sometimes released to give beneficial ants time to make a comeback. We decided the wasps are what caused our ants to disappear (for a while). If your ant corpses are headless, it could be the work of the wasps.
https://stephaniesuesansmith.com/killing-fire-ants-with-predator-wasps/

CADplans · Dec 27, 2019

If there is ANY chance it was a disease kill,,,
I would shovel up the dead ants, and mix some of the dead bodies into other active mounds,,
hopefully inoculating the healthy mounds with the disease,,,

My FIL used to live on Florida,,
for entertainment, he used to take a shovelful of ants from one mound, and toss them on another mound,,
the battle would take off!!

He said that it would weaken the attacked mound, :laughing:

Jstpssng · Dec 27, 2019

CADplans said:
If there is ANY chance it was a disease kill,,,
I would shovel up the dead ants, and mix some of the dead bodies into other active mounds,,
hopefully inoculating the healthy mounds with the disease,,,

My FIL used to live on Florida,,
for entertainment, he used to take a shovelful of ants from one mound, and toss them on another mound,,
the battle would take off!!

He said that it would weaken the attacked mound, :laughing:

That must be what they call fighting fire ant with fire ant?

Hey, somebody had to say it.

TractorGuy · Dec 27, 2019

I heard you could mix clans and they would kill each other off but I never had any luck with it.

I have got lazy and just dribble some Bifen concentrate on the mounds eventually it will rain and do the deed.

stuckmotor · Dec 27, 2019

TractorGuy said:
I heard you could mix clans and they would kill each other off but I never had any luck with it. Snip

That method was published in a "back to the land" type magazine years ago. I tried it and couldn't see that it did me any good at all.

3Ts · Dec 27, 2019

I used amdro for years and didn't see any real impact to the number of mounds in the yard. There is also an exposure limit with amdro. I don't remember the time period but exposure to the weather deactivates the poison, and it has a shelf life. Remember that they swarm with winged queens and fly off to other areas to start new mounds. (Also, from other areas to your yard.) I don't see enough bodies in your picture to think that the amdro really has done much other than reduce the population a little. I've found that Othene works much better (and quicker).

Fire ants are going to be a forever battle. Good Luck.

TractorGuy · Dec 27, 2019

Molten aluminum will kill em! LOL!

I ran the machine shop for the department Walter R. Tschinkel was in up until I retired. I built a lot of his kiln components and cut up tons of decommissioned aluminum dive tanks for him. He made some pretty cool castings of ant mounds. The casting photo they used for the Wikipedia article was done with plaster. That was his method before we ventured into the aluminum era. He had to painstakingly dig out all the pieces and glue them together. The aluminum castings came out more complete but still had to have some reassembly.

This may give you an idea why they are so hard to get rid of.