Before solving any problem, it must first be identified. Contrary to taking the time to understand

the problem, would be killers of “fire ants” have gone about with concoctions of poisons, backed by large amounts of corporate funding and have been very successful in putting our life styles in jeopardy, while fire ants are taking charge of everything. A College Professor said to our class, “Horse sense is

something that a Jack-Ass don’t have.” We would like to approach our Q&A’s from a common (horse)

sense position.

Q. What is the problem with fire ants?

A. Fire ants are the problem. They are a small red/black ant about 1/4 inch in length. Very aggressive, with a painful bite that injects their venom into the skin, causing a strong stinging sensation that often causes blisters to form. Depending on the situation, fire ant stings have been known to kill people,

even patients in nursing homes. Newly born deer, livestock and other ground creatures are regularly killed by these ants.

Q. Where did fire ants come from and where are they now?

A. It has been speculated that these nasty creatures made it to Mobile, Ala. via ship some 50-75 years ago. These “ants from hell” have covered a great portion of the Southern U. S. and are reported in Missouri, Tennessee, and Eastward to the Atlantic States and as far north as Delaware.

Q. What causes fire ants to bite?

A. Fire ants are very protective of their mounds which contain the queen(s), food supply, and brood. When they feel threatened, they attack in force. Disturbing the mound dome, causes many hundreds of them to come out of the mound to defend against any intruder.

Q. What is the real problem?

A. The real problem is how their propagation has been dealt with by the intellectual community. Webster’s Defines intellectual as “suggesting keen intelligence coupled with interest and ability in the more advanced fields of knowledge.” Fire ants have been studied now for 50-75 years and the ants have been winning the war over the intellectual community.

Q. What has been the attitude toward eliminating fire ants?

A. The attitude has included a lot of opinions and approaches that must be overcome. These include such thoughts that as, “We are just going to have to learn to live with fire ants”. Others say, “Totally

eliminating fire ants from an infected area is very difficult. Almost impossible to control.” It would

appear that, “..we don’t know what to do but keep buying and applying our poisons.” If you are like

me, that is like saying that we have to learn to live in the same house as a rattle snake or cobra. That

just does not seem to be an option.

Q. What has been the approach toward killing fire ants?

A. Researchers are paid big bucks to sit in a lab and mix their poisons and proclaim that they have

    the answers. Their potion is a concoctions of poisons often in granular form to sprinkle on the fire

    ant mound and then over the entire adjacent area. This allows birds and other foraging creatures to

    pick up, ingest and ultimately die. Others have come up with the idea of importing a certain fly that

    will sit on the mound and wait for the fire ant to surface and then the fly lays an egg in the head of

    the fire ant. The fire ant dies because it’s head drops off. Then there is a host of other ideas and all

    proclaim to be the answer, but the ants continue to thrive.

Q. What is the life expectancy of the fire ant?

A. It is thought that the queen lives upward to 20 years, however the fire ant lives for 28 days or so.

Q. What do fire ants eat and how do they survive?

A. There is much controversy in answering this question, however we would take the following position

    and try to justify our position. The worker ant does not have a digestive system but relies on

    survival energy from other sources. Many think the fire ant forages for food for himself and the

    queen, however, what is foraged goes into a food bank to decay. It is the energy from the decaying

    process that the ant acquires energy.

Q. Do fire ants forage both day and night?

A. Fire ants generally forage in the daytime while it is light and then preferably when the sun is

    shining. The reason for this is that the fire ant absorbs energy from the sun, much like is done with

    the decaying food process that we mentioned. Overcast days and nights do not afford energy to be

    absorbed by the fire ant, hence the fire ant will remain in the mound.

Q. When is the best time to treat the mound?

A. The obvious answer is when the ants are in the mound such as early morning, late evenings, cold

    or winter days. However, a better answer would be to treat the mound at anytime. The reason is

    that in treating the mound, the queen(s) is(are) destroyed. When the queen(s) is (are)dead, the

    mound cannot survive since eggs have to be produced to keep the mound active due to the short

    life cycle of the ants.

Q. Since you say that fire ants do not have a digestive system and take their energy from absorption,

    can you further explain what you mean?

A. In a heavily fire ant infested region, one of the main problems occur in electrical transformers,

    switch boxes, electrical conduits and outlets, etc. Electricity flowing through a wire produces what

    is called “eddy currents”. This is an energy field surrounding the wire that carries the electricity.

    Ants are attracted to this environment to gain energy from the eddy currents. We have seen

    electrical boxes packed with thousands of dead fire ants. They will pack themselves into those

    boxes until they literally short the circuit out with electricity flowing through a mass of fire ants.

    This not only kills the ants but the short circuit will destroy the appliance that they are in. The

    telephone industry experiences many problems in this area, in that the fire ants will literally remove

    the insulation from the phone connections, causing static on the line. A lot of the phone companies

    have issued poison granules to their lineman for years but they still have a very expensive fire ant

    problem.

Q. Why do mounds appear especially after a heavy rain?

A. The mound that you see above ground is the dome for protection of the underground portion. The

    dome is designed to shed water but heavy rains will demolish the dome, therefore after a rain, the

    rebuilding process takes place.

Q. How do commercial fertilizers enter into the fire ant propagation process?

A. Most commercial fertilizers are petroleum based. Petroleum is a source of energy for fire ants and

    these are taken to the mound to aid in the decaying process. When the farmer disperses

    commercial fertilizer, he is providing food for the fire ants. Many ranches have to confine their

    animals to special holding facilities for birthing purposes to prevent fire ants from killing the newly

    born animals.

    wiggle-tails in the water. Within a very short time, all the wiggle-tails were dead including many

    adult mosquitoes that landed on the surface of the water.