This is the first year I have ever seen no see-ums in TX! And guess what they carry: (now) leischmaniasis. I saw dozens of cases in Brazil, but never in the US - but it is in fact here and not talked about. It's been treated like Lyme disease was. NPR says it is in fact here, but it's because of climate change, not the illegal aliens...
AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH! FIRE ANTS!
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This is the first year I have ever seen no see-ums in TX! And guess what they carry: (now) leischmaniasis. I saw dozens of cases in Brazil, but never in the US - but it is in fact here and not talked about. It's been treated like Lyme disease was. NPR says it is in fact here, but it's because of climate change, not the illegal aliens...
Yessir, good old Dawn dish soap mixed with hot water has worked well killing the little bastards around here. Better than some of the store bought stuff and a hell of a lot cheaper too
My best results were always with a piece of rebar about 3 feet long, a few ounces of gasoline or diesel, and a match. Poke the hole, pour the fuel, (bonus points if you have a few ounces of each in a squirt bottle), and a match at the ready. Stab the mound, pour the fuel, chunk a lighted match into the hole. Be fast, and you avoid explosions and just get a jet hot flame.
If you cant find this get Dominion or Macho. Its all the same thing.
Great for sugar ants too...actually anything.
Great for spraying your seeded furrows. Especially taters. Drop seed taters, spray and cover. You will never have a tater bug. Spray around fruit trees before blooms set, youll not have bug problems on fruit trees. Spray your yard, no ticks or fleas ever. Stuff is great and it takes very little.
Don't you know, climate change causes everything, even a recession.
NPR? I trust them as much as I trust a wet fart.
Bobwhites, roadrunners, anything that nests on the ground, has been eradicated by the fire ants. I’m in N. Louisiana, and fire ants are the devil’s spawn.
OP, Amdro is what I use. Like someone said earlier, add it into your regular lawn maintenance, a couple times a year, to help keep them down. You will never, ever, get rid of them. That’s just a fact of life here in the South.
I had a neighbor one time poke a hole down the middle of the mound, fill it full of gunpowder, and light it. It was like watching a 4th of July fountain. Fire shooting out of the mound, with thousands of flaming fire ant corpses flying through the air. It was glorious.
I just got some Amdro "Fire Ant Killer" yesterday. I'll apply it initially and then we will see about regular periodic maintenance.
Oddly enough, St. Augustine sod is our sod, but I'm not sure if it's "Central American" or not....
Benadryl type topical ointments sometimes work better than hydrocortisone, but for bites and such I've found that the 4% Lidocaine ointments you can now get OTC knock the itch or pain down fast. I've not used them for fire ant bites, but they work for everything else.
Nonetheless, there is a sod produced today called "St. Augustine." And it's what we use in our development (oddly enough controlled by the HOA.
We can't use any other kind of sod). Where it gets the name from, I don't know.
Nonetheless, there is a sod produced today called "St. Augustine." And it's what we use in our development (oddly enough controlled by the HOA.
As long as we're off the topic of ants, if you ever need to replace/re-sod your original St. Augustine then Scotts ProVista™ St. Augustine might be worth checking into.
Advertises less water needed, slower growing and glyphosate-tolerant.
I don't know if you can get St. Augustine without fire ants becasue it is grown around the gulf coast.Nonetheless, there is a sod produced today called "St. Augustine." And it's what we use in our development (oddly enough controlled by the HOA.
HOA can fuck up anything.
I'll check it out, Thanks. It just has to look like the other sod used so that it appears to be "uniform" throughout the neighborhood.
Just take it like a man and after you get bit a few hundred times it doesn't really affect you anymore.
Can fire ants survive a freeze? Or, in other words, what's the upper latitude of their range? I know I've gotten bit in Charleston, and that's pretty far north...
What eats them?
What eats them?
Fire ants have been here in LA far back as I can remember and I'm 64. The old folks would tell us younguns that they didn't have fire ants when they were young.
In my 64 years the temps have been in the single digits a lot. Even 0 once in 1989. All the bugs people seem to believe would be killed off during such times (fire ants, mosquitoes, ticks etc) would be right back when the weather warmed up.
Far as I know, nothing native here would survive eating fire ants. That's IMO. They are no better than democrats, pure evil.
Pretty much everywhere...between fire ants, pigs/hogs, and cats quail will likely never come back. I was reading a report from Arkansas Game and Fish and the loss of quail over 30 years is shocking....like 90% loss.
We have a similar restriction, my yard has a bunch of Bermuda in it that invaded from the common areas, which are all Bermuda
, during draught times.When it's cut it all looks like grass and nobody bitches.
If it ever bothers me I'll get a palette, spray the Bermuda with generic RoundUp and cover it with this. About $30 more a palette than normal St. Augustine.
My yard is bermuda. I hate the shit. I'd replace with zoysia or St. Augustine (Saphire probably, ps..I see a newer cultivar was listed above) but my HOA (yes..I hate them too) would probably fine my ass for St. Auggie. I'm right at the zone where St. Augustine could get killed off. That said, my Great Uncle had normal old-fashioned St. Augustine for years in west central Arkansas and never had a die-off from cold. I could even go with Centipede as I had for a while in Georgia. Creeping red fescue is a possibility as well. ANYTHING but bermuda - and it continually sticks to shoes in winter and tracks everywhere.We have a similar restriction, my yard has a bunch of Bermuda in it that invaded from the common areas, which are all Bermuda
When it's cut it all looks like grass and nobody bitches.
If it ever bothers me I'll get a palette, spray the Bermuda with generic RoundUp and cover it with this. About $30 more a palette than normal St. Augustine.
In summary...Bermuda grass is a weed.
Hello I put this around house inside and outside and it works really good. The ants take poison back to the nest and it kills the nest .Its easy to use I have dogs and put it in bottle caps where the dogs can't get to the poison. Doesn't cost that much and I can control where I set it up .Hope this helps and you get the same results as I do .Geoff3
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Thanks much! At this point, the problem appears to be much more "outside" than "inside..." otherwise I'd be in deep shiznit.
As of 1pm., still no activity over the main mound area. Nor are there any new mounds on my driveway cracks. It's raining now, so tomorrow morning I will apply the Amdro and then see where we go from there.
All that remains now is me dealing with all the welts and blisters all over my legs, hands, etc. I am treating them per my doctor's instructions. We'll see.
The active ingredient in those Terro things is Borax, the soap version of Boric Acid.
Everything else in it is basically sugar water to trick the ants into taking it.
Powered sugar mixed 1:1 with simple baking soda is also effective for those little bastards running around the kitchen. Same as Terro the ants will feed it to the queen because of the sugar. The baking soda mixes with their digestive acids and expands until they rupture.
1/4 cup powered sugar, 1/4 cup baking soda, toss in a tablespoon of boric acid if you want to kick it up a notch.
Mix it all up dry and sprinkle it where they walk or add a 1/4 cup of water to make the syrup and make your own ant bait traps with bottle caps.
