Little, tiny ants

[nani1970]

We have got little tiny ants in our house.
They are mostly in my nice clean kitchen.
Have tried all the natural ways to kill them.
Does not work.
Every morning my counters are crawling with them.
What kind of bait will work on these critters?

[nana valley]

When I moved into my house, I tried everything, including obsessive cleaning of the kitchen. Finally told my Terminex guy if he could do anything about them. He treated the house last August and it's been a year and not one has appeared! Here's a bit of info on these interesting little ants, by the way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapinoma_melanocephalum

He who hoots with owls at night cannot soar with the eagles in the morning.

[Lee M-S]

I use a mix of Borax, sugar, and a little water. They take the bait back to their nest and it wipes them out. But new ants come in, so keep the bait out all the time.

You can buy a commercial version of this called Terro, I think.

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[steve1]

There are actually quite a few different species of foreign ants in Hawaii and on Hawai'i island. The worst by far is Wasmannia auropunctata (Little fireant or the Electric ant).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasmannia

In order to treat them effectively you really need to know which one you are dealing with because the life cycles and food preferences are very different.

Since you pay taxes you are eligible for free advice from the County Extension agency. I would recommend the one on Komohana in Hilo (by Imiloa museum) Take some samples with you and ask for verification. I like to cover them with clear tape then fold it over on them.

If you want to read more about little fireants there is a great group of researchers here in Hilo with a very informative website:
http://www.littlefireants.com/

[terracore]

If they won't eat the terro liquid bait then they are LFA. The only thing that kills them quickly is Amdro and similar products. It is corn grits saturated with a bait/poison. They suck the bait/poison out of the grits and share with the colony and they die. If you sprinkle some amdro around where you see the ants and they disappear after a day or two you have your answer. Then sprinkle the amdro around the outside of the house. That will kill any colonies within 6-10 feet. Amdro is useless once it gets wet, so applying it is problematic around here. LFA live in interconnected colonies, so once you have them, they never really go away. The killed colonies will eventually get recolonized. We have to spread amdro around the outside of the house every few weeks and it's problematic because we have to put it under something the chickens can't get to.

The good news is that they aren't aggressive. Their sting is nasty but they only sting if provoked. You can usually handle them without getting stung.

Whatever you buy, make sure it is labeled for fire ants and that it is a BAIT. Home Depot and other stores sell fire ant poison that is meant for mounds. It doesn't work for LFA because they don't mound. They live in the ground and in the trees. Amdro and Firestrike are two products I have used with success. They are both expensive. Cheapest I have found is http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002FYM...00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It is two 1-pound containers for $19.99, compared to about $40 per pound locally.

[geochem]

We have been battling LFA for several months now and another treatment is Home Defense - active ingredient is bifenthrin - recommended by Nick Sakovitch in the Trib. You can spray a perimeter around the house and that will reduce the population somewhat. Although the LFA are not aggressive, they get into everything and if you are getting painful, burning, itching stings, then that's what you are dealing with. They are also a serious threat to pets as they get into the pet food and will sting - and can blind - the animals.

[csgray]

LFA are tree and shrub dwelling, as well as being so light they "rain" down on pets lying in the shade. One of our dogs is virtually blind from LFA stings because of where she prefers to hang out in our yard, while her sister is relatively unaffected. It took us too long to realize what we were dealing with and Maia paid the price.

Carol

[terracore]

Thanks for the tip on Home Defense. We tried a similar spray but it didn't make any difference. Do you know if the Home Defense bait works?

One of our dogs likes to lay in an area infested with LFA and so far has no bites to the eyes (or anywhere else that we can tell). Maybe the Revolution we give him has something to do with it? Curious if you give your dog anything like Revolution, Frontline, Advantage, etc?

Although I've never tried it on LFA, ants *hate* DEET. I lived in a rental that had ants (though a non-biting benign variety) and I sprayed a perimeter of Deep Woods OFF around it and the ants completely disappeared. I could actually see them walking up to the area where I had sprayed it and then doing an immediate 180. Another time we were chopping wood and one of the logs was infested with carpenter ants. There were millions of them. We sprayed DEET on our shoes and they stopped crawling up our legs. We were standing in a sea of large black ants and they wouldn't come near us. Or course that wouldn't work here because the rain would just rinse it away.

[Carey]

LFA's have been covered in many threads, including a lot of good info from the ant lab at UH.... Tango & similar are the 'new' products, we have been using Amdro "Firestrike" which is the Amdro 'Ant Block" ingredient (hydramethylnon) PLUS the S-Methoprene larvae inhibitor of Tango & is the only LABELED LFA product for grazing animals (we only have cat, chicken & dog grazers...but...)

The Firestrick (& Extinguish Plus) are way easier on the pocketbook to buy into than purchasing the 2.5 gal. jug of Tango available on island, & that includes the LFA relabel (and buying & re-selling pesticides...well that is another thread...)

Anyhoo, one of the past threads:
http://punaweb.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15210

[ericlp]

Yeah there seems to be a thread started here weekly about some sort of pest. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a separate "pest" forum? So far I don't have LFA to my knowledge but all my neighbors have had them and probably still do.