Fire Ants!

[Worth1]

I saw a kid dump a whole giant can of that stuff (Amdro) on one little mound.
Idiot.
It is the only thing that has worked for me.
Neighborhoods need to get together to put the stuff out so it will work better.
Sometimes the ants wont mess with it and other times they do.

Worth

[AlittleSalt]

Originally Posted by Worth1

The vinegar didn't work they are as happy as a clam.
Reluctant to put poison in the raised bed.

Worth, I know of a non-poisonous thing that works too. You'll have to replace the soil exactly where you use it though. The same vegetable (Soybean) cooking oil we both use will kill out a colony of fire ants. Then just remove that soil.

I haven't tried unused vegetable oil, but I'm sure it works just as well.

[b54red]

Amdro is the only thing that really works and works every time as long as it isn't too old or the container hasn't been opened for too long especially if the humidity is high. I have been using it since it was introduced years ago and have found that if you use it every spring and summer and after especially heavy rains which force the ants to form new beds you need to use it less and less as time goes on. I have only seen a couple of small beds all year but when we first moved in here it was a constant battle until Amdro was available. Even with Amdro it took a few years to really get them under control and if you ever let up for just one season they will come back rapidly. We had to really get them under control because one of our sons was allergic to fire ants and of course he was the only one of our boys that got stung a lot.

Bill

[ContainerTed]

You don't have to use much Amdro (or Spectricide's equivalent) to kill the mound. I take a stick and simply (and quickly) disturb the mound. When the ant guards show up, I sprinkle about a teaspoon of the granules among the scurrying little biters. That's all you need to do. They feed the queen and the job is done.

In San Antonio, I leased a house on the west side. I counted 31 active mounds and "new" mounds in the yard. The neighbors had a bunch as well. Three days later, I had 22. Three days after that, the count was down to 16. Then 11, 7, 4, and none in roughly three day intervals. The smart thing I did was to get permission to treat some of my neighbor's yards (the ones that bordered me). For about a buck's worth of granules, I moved the ant colonies back another 50 feet or so. Once my yard was clear, I treated the whole yard every now and then with a hand full thrown out thinly. I did this to prevent a colony that a neighbor had "run off" from setting up in my space.