Tag Archives: Solenopsis invicta
Fire ants make water rescue… interesting
What’s reddish-brown, rides the water like an air mattress, changes shape like an amoeba, and stings like the devil? If you answered fire ants floating in floodwater, you’ve probably been in Texas high water before. Floods bring all sorts of wildlife into close and sometimes uncomfortable contact with people, but none perhaps so uncomfortable as fire ants. When their mounds are flooded, fires ants survive by riding air bubbles to the surface, joining feet (tarsi) with nest mates, and floating. The ingenious behavior that allows ants to float… Read More →
Controlling fire ants in sensitive areas
Among the common questions I receive about fire ants include questions on how to control them within vegetable gardens, compost bins and (increasingly) chicken coops. My favorite tool for fire ant control is use of fire ant bait broadcast over the entire home lawn and landscape. This is an inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to keep fire ants away. To learn more about this, check out the Texas Two-Step Method factsheet. However, the most commonly available baits do not allow direct use in vegetable gardens or many areas with livestock…. Read More →
Ten top pests that can hurt your home
In a recent paper, researchers from North Carolina State University tried to estimate how many species of insect-like critters (arthropods) could be found in homes. They intensively searched 50 North Carolina houses and looked for as many different kinds of living and dead arthropods as they could find. Altogether they identified 579 different species from 304 different families. In fact, out of the 554 rooms scoured for the research, only 5 rooms had no detectable arthropods at all (I bet they didn’t look hard enough). It shouldn’t come as much surprise… Read More →
Time to bait for fire ants!
If you haven’t tried them yet, fire ant baits are the best tools for really managing fire ants. They are relatively inexpensive, require little labor to apply, and are safe for both you and the environment. The biggest drawback of baits is that they cannot be used all year round. Instead applications must be timed to periods when fire ants are actively looking for food, foraging in ant worker lingo. Many years ago a researcher at Florida State University, named Sanford Porter, spent an entire year of his life (three times… Read More →
Fire ant season reminders
With a little bit of rain and warmer temperatures fire ant mounds are popping up throughout Texas and the southeast. Spring mound season is an excellent time to think about controlling some of those larger mounds with a mound treatment of your choice. Despite the warm days with air temperatures in the 80s and 90s, soil temperatures are just climbing to levels where fire ants are thinking about foraging for food. This means that in some areas it may still be a little early for applying fire ant… Read More →