cinder question

[HADave]

I wonder if we should be starting a new topic here ??


I'd support the boiling water treatment, Lucy suggested, as this is what we use every spring, although not for fire ants, but it does keep a variety of other home invading ants at bay. Cinnamon as well might keep them contained to a specific area as, and again not sure about fire ants but all other will not cross a line of cinnamon.

Here is some general info to share

38. Can you describe the life cycle of fire ants?

Here is a thumbnail outline:

1. egg laid by queen 2. larva hatches and grows through 4 larval developmental stages or instars between which molts of larval skin occur 3. at 4th molt a pupa is produced 4. pupa hatched into adult ant.

There are two basic types of eggs.

1. unfertilized eggs — become males with wings whose only function is to mate with queens
2. fertilized eggs — become females which are either
a. winged virgin queens or
b. various castes of sterile workers.
How the colony feeds and cares for female larvae determines their caste; i.e., whether they behave as workers (all are sterile females) or queens. Male ants develop from unfertilized eggs and therefore possess only one set of chromosomes; i.e. they are haploid. Thus male ants have no father (but they have a grandfather). Females develop from fertilized eggs and are typical diploids. This type of life cycle occurs in other so-called eusocial insects including wasps, bees, and ants and is called "haplo-diploidy." Eusocial insects possess sterile castes that help queens by raising other siblings. Why some individuals give up the option to reproduce has been an interesting evolutionary dilemma since the time of Darwin but the work of people like the late W.D. Hamilton has largely solved the problem.

39. How do fire ants spread?

Fire ants reproduce opportunistically when conditions are wet and warm. They are found in all types of soil, but they do better in open pastures and sunny, grassy places than in thick shaded woods. Grassy medians of freeway and mowed pipeline and powerline rights of ways provide prime "freeways" for the ants too.

Polygyne colonies (those with multiple queens/mound) can reproduce by budding off new colonies and spread by walking a few meters per year. Colony establishment by winged queens can occur miles beyond source populations. This mode of spread may be promoted by prevailing winds and is the only way that monogyne or single queen colonies reproduce. Judging from the spread across Texas, natural dispersal was on the order of 10-20 miles/year. Of course transport in nursery products spread the ants beyond the boundary of natural dispersal. Though fire ants may arrive in the NE U.S. and Canada via nursery products, nests in RVs, cars, vans, etc., they are not likely to become a problem because of the cold conditions in fall spring and winter.

40. What can I use to kill fire ants indoors? I don't want to expose my family and pets to dangerous chemicals.

If you can avoid pets and kids you could consider making these same baits available in the house as well. Don't bradcast there but put baits in corners under, appliances and in closets. Indoors, I've also used boric acid (15% by volume) in peanut butter placed in bottle lids where ants have trails. Boric acid works in similar fashion, killing slowly after distribution among colony members (it also kills cockroaches when mixed with cornmeal and sugar). It will take about 2 weeks to completely control them, but is very effective. Treating the inside alone will never work since ants killed there are quickly replaced by a large population outdoors.

41. Why not kill all the ants in my yard just to be sure I kill the fire ants?

Other ants compete for food with fire ants and help keep them under control. If you kill all ants in your yard, you create an "ant vacuum" and after the next rain, it will be fire ant queens that land in your "safe" yard to begin new mounds unopposed by any other ants. Fire ants are better at colonizing and dominating newly disturbed habitat than the average ant species.

If native ants are not harming you but simply sharing their habitat with you, I would suggest leaving them alone. Often when one removes a native element of the ecosystem, something much worse fills the void. In Texas, our worst fire ant problems are in areas where people blasted the native system with pesticides and made invasion by introduced pests more likely.

Aloha HADave