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Slightly off topic, but here in HPP we have the fire ants AND those nasty stinging caterpillars. Sometimes I feel like I need to put on a hazmat suit to do my gardening, which is my main activity.
Also, and more on topic, I think there must be more than one type of fire ant in Puna. The ones we have had in the past have been larger than the ones described in the HTH article, and they have nested in the ground. We don't seem to have the tiny ones so far. I have been able to control the ground nesting ones with a Malathion drench around the nest sites. (You don't know how annoyed I had to be to use that nasty stuff.) We don't have any fire ants right now, but the caterpillars remain a problem despite the use of a bug zapper to kill the moths that produce the caterpillars.
Not so cheerful on this topic,
Jerry
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Dave M - I would be interested in how these ants are dealt with in anyone's state - please share.
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Hey Gloria, (and all)
I apologize for my previous post. I've been a bit inbittered since my large deal, that was going to allow me the $$ to buy a lot on the BI went south. That with the flu.. oh well you do the math.
When I get to feeling better I will talk to my neighbor about his, for better lack of words, stuff he gives me. When I asked him what it was once, he just said "dude you don't want to know jus use it sparingly".
It comes, from him, in a mason jar (half full). It is a tan dry granule that he says the worker ants take to the queen. He says that it does not kill them immediatly thus letting theem get it to the queen (which is very important).
Like Jerry, many here do use malithion. Problem with it is, well among the obvious leaching to the ground water problems, it usually doesn't get to the Queen even with the most thorough drenching.
She, the queen, just moves out in the middle of the night. You can tell when she goes by the caravan of black suburbans with darked out windows  .
When/if I get up and around I'll post some of the remedies that they use around here. (dave will have to go down to the feed store)
Blessings,
dave
"Sometimes your the bug and sometimes your the windshield"
Blessings,
dave
"It doesn't mean that much to me.. to mean that much to you." Neil Young
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Thanks - we look foward to hearing from you. Hope you are feeling better soon.
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Dave, I think the reason my drench works here is the fact that the soil is so shallow that the queen gets it every time. When I used this method back in Georgia, it only worked about half the time, with the usual result being that the mound just moved over.
My neighbor there had an unusual method. He would take a broom handle and drive it as far into the mound as he could. He would then dump a shot glass or two of gasoline down the resulting hole. He would wait a few minutes for the fumes to permeate the mound and then ignite it to eliminate the residual contamination of the gasoline, or so he reasoned. This worked every time, but I never did it because of the pollution and the fact that grass would take quite a while to grow back over the spots he treated. He called it "nuking the little bastards."
Cheers,
Jerry
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Ok since Jerry brought this up. I have nuked more than few using that very same method. I was hesitant to bring it up here for the obvious reasons.
My old neighbor told me it didn't work but I disagree it really feels good after you've unknowingly stood on a mound for a minute. Kinda theraputic.
With the shallow soil content there I can see where malithion could well serve the purpose. And if that is the case and I believe you, then I would suggest that you treat treat treat anytime you see a mound.
As well I would talk to your neighbors, legislature and anyone who will listen to get them adressed at every level possible.
When I tell my six yr old we're going to move to Hawaii It sounds something like this "there are no snakes, scorpians and or ouwee ants there and we'll never get sick and we'll never grow older" Ok so i may be a little over the top. It kills me to see this thread and I've already found out the there are scorpians there.
These lil devils ruin camping, picknicks and many other outdoor activities..
Blessings,
dave
"Sometimes your the bug and sometimes your the windshield"
Blessings,
dave
"It doesn't mean that much to me.. to mean that much to you." Neil Young
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quote:
.......My neighbor there had an unusual method. He would take a broom handle and drive it as far into the mound as he could. He would then dump a shot glass or two of gasoline down the resulting hole. He would wait a few minutes for the fumes to permeate the mound and then ignite it to eliminate the residual contamination of the gasoline, or so he reasoned. This worked every time...
I laughed out loud as this made me remember my dad killing gophers by attaching the garden house to the car exhaust and putting it down the gopher hole.... couldnt do that these days with the cost of gas!!
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Thanks Dave for looking into this for us. I appreciate your posts even the ones, very few, I don't perhaps see eye to eye on.
When read the HDOA PDF file, it said something about using chop sticks with peanut butter to test nursery stock before heading to Kona, but it didn't specify this technique. I asume you dip a chop stick into peanut butter, then the clean end into the pot to be transfered, and suppose if there are LFA's they turn up for the peanut butter.
My question is could boric acid be put into the peanut butter, coating a chop stick, be eaten, and taken to the Suburban riding Queen, for her demise?
Hope you're feeling better real soon Dave M!
mella l
mella l
Art and Science
bytheSEA
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""I laughed out loud as this made me remember my dad killing gophers by attaching the garden house to the car exhaust and putting it down the gopher hole....""
ROTFLOL,
OK... I like your dad!!
Blessings,
dave
"Sometimes your the bug and sometimes your the windshield"
Blessings,
dave
"It doesn't mean that much to me.. to mean that much to you." Neil Young
yeah, my house in Waikoloa had scorpions, and the first week I looked down to see one running at my bare toes ... but since that house I've not seen them. Centipedes I loathe and fear.
But the fact is that ant and spider bites are 100% of the pain that has actually gotten me ... because I'm more casual (wrongly) about treading in their areas?
There are large red fire ants. I got bitten about two weeks ago; I still have scabs from the bites. They hurt like hell, then itch, then a day or two later they make little itchy painful blisters. When they blister I open them up. It is usually a bad idea to mess with bites, but with these I feel relief when I pop the blister and then apply Benadryl, like some of the toxin is released.
I also use clay on bites, anything that "draws" -- activated charcoal.
We had little fire ants in Hilo; we used the stuff for fire ants from Walmart / Home Depot / Garden Exchange, and it worked. Perhaps we didn't have a bad infestation.
Also our LFA had not chased off the other ants; we had large fire ants, red ants, black ants and LFA all on a 30,000 sq fppt piece ... but the LFA stayed in the upper back corner ... I'm sure they were fire ants, don't know any other ant that size to have a bite that fierce.
The thing I hate with the bites is they'll keep me from sleeping well for at least two nights.
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