Fire ants leave large mounds on lawns, attack in large numbers and leave stinging, painful bites on their victims. According to the Organic Gardening website, gardeners have many methods of removing fire ants, but not all of them are effective. Does this Spark an idea?
Grits and Fire Ants
One widely circulated theory for killing fire ants is to sprinkle grits on their mound in the belief that the ants will eat the grits and die when the material expands in their stomachs. Dr. Sanford Porter from the United States Department of Agriculture claims that ants cannot be killed with grits because worker ants cannot ingest solid material.
Organic Fire Ant Control
One method of killing ants without using a pesticide is to pour scalding hot water over the mound. This may require several applications before the water drains into the vertical tunnels and the mound collapses. This method is only 20 to 60 percent effective. Another option is to dig up the anthill--add talcum powder to the shovel to keep ants from crawling up the handle--dump it in a bucket, and kill the ants by drowning them in soapy water.
Additional Control Strategies
The University of Florida IFAS Extension suggests the use of organic insecticides such as boric acid, an inorganic powder that is deadly to insects, or diatomaceous earth, which is a mineral-based pesticide made of fossilized water plants. Other botanical insecticides include nicotine sulfate, rotenone and pyrethrin. These products can be purchased at most gardening or hardware stores or ordered online.
Tags: ants cannot, fire ants, that ants