Fire Ants

Believed to have been introduced into the United States during the 1930's at the seaport of Mobile, Alabama, the imported fire ants present a serious problem in Texas, Southern California, Florida and many other areas throughout the Southern United States. The fire ants infest pastures, cropland, citrus groves, golf courses, lawns, flowerbeds and other open habitats. Among other things, they will seriously sting any intruder, human and animal alike; remove bark from young trees; and build ant mounds that are up to 18 inches high that make cultivating of crops difficult and expensive. There are cases where fire ants have infested  the feed of livestock with disastrous results and into orange groves to an extent that the workers have refused to enter to pick the fruit for fear of being stung.

Fire Ant Control

Methods such as the broadcast of pesticides are not the solution to the fire ant problem in that they kill the foraging fire ants before they can feed the poison to the queen and the other ants in the colony. When foraging ants are killed, fire ant colonies divide and reproduce at an even greater rate. Also, these pesticides kill off beneficial insects which pollinate and protect crops and plants.

The use of ant bait to attack the problem provides a more effective and long-term solution in that it seeks to permit the foraging ants to consume a less toxic ’food’ and carry it back to be fed to the queen and the rest of the colony without causing alarm. One method is to spread ant bait, such as a boric acid based bait, or other chemical based bait, in a powdered or granular form, completely over the entire area effected by fire ants. But this method presents problems since an unfavorable change in weather conditions after spreading the bait can limit the desired results. For example the ground temperature has to be above 65 degrees for the fireants to start to be active. Additionally, rain can wash away or degrade the bait prior to being consumed by the ants. Liquid ant bait is considered the ideal bait in that it can satisfy the ants' need for water, protein and carbohydrates in a single food source. This presents the need for a weather-tolerant, high volume, long-term, continuous, liquid ant bait delivery device that the AntPro liquid ant bait station provides.