How to effectively eliminate fire ants in your yard?

Fire ants are dangerous insects which bite and at times, can cause death. Your pets are in danger if your lawn has ants infestation. Your children, too, are at risk of painful bites from these ruthless insects. Besides their stings, they will affect the evenness of your fair laws with ugly mounds of soil making it look unattractive to watch.   

Fire ants are aggressive and ready to attack at very slight provocation. They sting injecting a toxic alkaloid venom on the animal or the target and are known to target the soft bellies of the animals. Your pets, like cats and dogs, will fall prey to these ants. The ants feed on insects and ticks reason why you are likely to find them in grassy areas where their prey is readily available. Probably you’ve seen them and are wondering how to kill and control fire ants in your yard. Below here, we look at practical ways. Let’s roll.

Before embarking on the best method to control the fire ants, first determine the extent of infestation to establish which would work out best and efficient. How will the procedure affect the other animals within your home? It will depend on the approach taken in eliminating and treating their hideouts.

How to effectively eliminate fire ants in your yard? 1 - Flowers & Plants
Public domain image by Alex Wild, produced by the University of Texas “Insects Unlocked” program.

Identify the fire ants

Before you embark on destroying them, you need to find them from their hideout. It’s easy to identify the fire ants from the appearance of the mound in your lawn.

A keen person can identify through its sting though it’s awkward to expose yourselves to a pest to establish if it can bite or not. Nonetheless, its sting is very painful, but a bite from safari ant is also painful.

Fire ants prefer clear lawns, open fields, pastures, parks where they can hide and create mounds that are very distinguishable from the height. These mounds are usually found near rotting logs and around the stumps. You will also find them on the bark of trees.

It’s easy to distinguish fire ants from other ants due to their brown color and their size. The ants can grow up to 1/8 or 1/4 of an inch. Likewise, their aggressive behavior in movement and wanting to attack is also outstanding from other species of ants.

Understand fire ants survival habits

Fire ants are active when the weather is warm, particularly during summer. During this time, the soil is warm, and the surrounding weather is mild and conducive. It’s contrary when you think about winter when temperatures get so low. When it’s freezing, you may not spot them since they hide to keep warm. Likewise, when it’s very hot, they will not forage for food on the earth’s surface.

Early in the morning, they are known to emerge from their hideaway to look for enough food to feed. It’s also an excellent time to feed the queen, who lives permanently inside the mound.

Therefore, the morning hours are the best to treat the mounds. Around this time, they are quickly retreating into the mound to feed the queen and hide from harsh weather conditions.

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Effective methods of getting rid of fire ants

There are two methods of eliminating and controlling these pests from your lawns. Here, we will discuss in detail how they are applicable and how they eliminate them.

Mound Treatment

The mound is a hill or a heap of soil where ants hide. Fire ants usually stray into the field in search of food and then retreat in the mound where they sleep and spend most of the time. 

This method will involve spraying the lawn with insecticide and, more particularly, around the mound where the ants are and where the queens are usually based. 

Treat the mound properly by pouring enough pesticides around it to kill the fire ants together with the queen, who lives inside there. 

Digging into the mound will help in ensuring you reach enough depth that is proximity to the queen’s house. Without eliminating the queen, there are chances of recurrence of the ants.

Never disturb the mound before treating as this will only help the fire ants to migrate to another safe area where they’ll create a heap, breed, and settle.

You may think your lawn does not have fire ants; however, these insects can create an underground tunnel which may run up to 25 feet from the mound. In drought, they hibernate deep inside the soil and will only resurface during the rainy season.

To eliminate the ants, it requires vigorous spraying on a single colony that may accommodate over 200,000 ants.  

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Use of fire ants bait

The fire ants bait is an effective method to eliminate these insects. It involves the use of granules and spreading them all over the lawn to entice the ants to come and feed on them. A spreader may be used to ensure that the treatment covers every corner of the yard. 

The ants will mistake the bait for food which they forage and carry it into the mound where they use to feed on and the queen too. This approach will eventually kill and eliminate the whole colony, depending on how much quantity of the bait finds its way into the territory. 

An effective bait can sweep the whole colony within a week or two. Look for the most effective and easy to use. 

Care must be taken to keep away the pets from the law when the process is ongoing as the granules may be poisonous to them.

If this process doesn’t eliminate the ants, treatment can be administered to the mound to ensure no more ants are in existence. 

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Conclusion

In this article, we have looked at methods that will eliminate the fire ants and not repelling them. Repelling is just for the short term, and the ants migrate from your lawn and recur later.

Without pesticides, you may achieve little, whereas the real problem remains intact. Ensure your lawn is free from these pests by choosing the most effective method. 

Updated on 2024-03-18 - Images from Amazon API. Logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. 1001Gardens is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

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