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NEWS YOU CAN USE:   
Fire Ants

2009 Update  Muriel Walker

In 2007 a great product was introduced that has proven itself invaluable in the fight to prevent Fire ants in the home landscape.  Ask your garden center for Over and Out.  And no, I don't work for the maker - I used it and it worked for a year!   It is not cheap but then it works and needs only one application a year. It is a granule product that is best applied in early spring as in late February if warm or first weeks of March if weather stays cold.  The ants are dormant under ground during cold weather but start to build mounds and are active as weather warms.   Treat the mounds immediately as they are built with the Over and Out mound treatment (nice plastic shaker can) and treat the whole yard then also with a spreader device. As always, READ & FOLLOW label instructions!

 

From Clarence Crochet  2001

Hi folks! We were reading about fire ant killers and the following came to mind. My mother-in-law had many hills in her yard and she used a boiling hot kettle of water to pour on the hill. It usually did the job well and must have killed most of the ants. We use Orthene ant killer. It's in a large can. We simply punch holes in the top and sprinkle over the mound lightly. It is rather expensive but the absolute best we have used. It does stink also. The way that it kills is that ants must come out of the mound to search for food. They get the white powder on their legs and return into the mound with it. This contaminates the entire mound, killing all that are underground. Of course, the problem is that new mounds always show up again later!

I have also used bug killer granules and used a hand held granule spreader (the kind with a hopper and a crank). This works well. The object here is to sprinkle all over the beds, remembering that we must apply the granules also around the beds in about a six-foot wide band. This gives the best all around protection against re-infestation for several weeks.

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