Posted on 03/10/2020 6:53:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
From what I’ve read the Imported Red Fire Ant species got to my hometown about the same time I did. And fire ants are not going to be gone from Baton Rouge or Bovina when I am.
Ants are just a fact of life and there is no simple surefire ant solution. However, there is such a thing as the Museum of Novel Fire Ant Control Methods and Products. I just can’t find out if it is a true physical facility or merely cyber located.
It is not definite as to what entity is its founder and curator, but I’m thinking folks at Texas A&M. Hopefully, some readers will Google it and read about the creative failed attempts to control fire ants. Several of the museum’s collection come with YouTube verification. Some devices were even patented or their name trademarked.
The McCoy Ant Stomper was a knee-high windmill first developed at Lubbock for another ant species but advertised for fire ants in the late 1970s. As the propeller turned it powered a tiny roller that was to run over worker ants as they emerged from the mound.
The Anster from the 1980s was a wheeled walk-behind gizmo powered by a lawnmower engine. A person pushed it and stopped it centered over an ant mound where its spinning tines ground up the mound.
The Queen Smasher came from Alabama. It was simply a square iron weight with a vertical rod and a crosspiece handle. The operator merely repeatedly beat down on a mound with the patent-applied-for smasher.
There have been numerous rigs created to pull behind a tractor or vehicle that inject steam into ant mounds, one mound at a time. I recall once years ago we let a guy demonstrate such an invention at the annual garden field day at Crystal Springs.
We had a lot of interested spectators follow his large propane tank on wheels mound destroyer, but everybody was told to stand back, way back.
Quite a few ant killer theories involved ways to inject liquid nitrogen into ant mounds, but nobody has come up with a cost-effective and safe way to make it work.
Be it steam or liquid nitrogen, I don’t think any method requiring pricy equipment and operators for hire is a go for front and back yards. Undetected new colonies would be tunneling below ground while the rig is being driven away down the street.
Both the YaardVark and the Electric Anteater claimed to electrocute fire ants.
For a renewable energy solution, there was the Solar Ant Charmer. And even though expensive plug-in devices that allegedly ran moles out of the yard by vibrations never worked, along came the $700 Electrocat designed to vibrate ants away from up to an acre.
One museum piece that evidently does work is the Ant-free Pet Bowl.
It is double-walled with the outside wall off the ground. Ants crawl up the inner wall and supposedly get frustrated with the U-turn at the top and just give up on dog food for today.
Terry Rector writes for the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District.
Pour a little gasoline on the mound, wait a minute or so for the fumes to spread through the tunnels, then toss a match. You get a satisfying poof and many dead ants, along with a circle of dead grass that grows back in a few months.
Let the ant colony know a dem was just elected to the area and he’s going to be raising the rent on mounds.
That’s what we did, without lighting it. Big brown blotches. This was in Valdosta GA, a stone’s throw from the Florida State Line.
How’s this - BUS the fire ant mounds into democrat neighborhoods in the name of “integration”.
This past Winter was the best time to be proactive.
Live stock will have to be removed from the treated area for a year.
IMPORT ARMADILLOS.
Aldrin! banded now.
I use Amdro fire ant bait.
It takes a while but always works.
The workers give the poisoned bait to the queen, and then when she eats it and dies, bye bye ants.
Once the weather dries out and stops raining for a while, I’ll circle the house thirty feet out in a band of bait.
You beat me to it. Yes, this works wonderfully, so simple.
Also works on in ground Yellow-jacket nests/hives.........never fails......
Largest Aluminum Fire Ant Colony Cast So Far (Cast #072)
6,856,855 views•Mar 12, 2015 =>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xvsxarw-J0
How did that happen?
Ping
Wow. I would worry that once you get one bite, you will get a lot.
Years ago I did this with two fire ant mounds at my parent’s house. One of them had bit my little sister so we wanted to get rid of them.
The two mounds were about 50 feet apart in the backyard, so I filled a pint Mason jar with gasoline and my father and I went out to take care of the problem
I poured about 1/2 the pint of gasoline into one mound, let it soak for a few minutes and then tossed a match. Getting a satisfying ‘WHOMP!’ and a ball of flame, we moved on to the next mound, as I said, about 50 feet away.
As I’m pouring the rest of the pint into the hole, I told my father that it would really be something if these two holes were connected down in there somewhere.
About this time, I hear another ‘WHOMP!’ and a geyser of flame erupts from the mound, engulfing my hand and shattering the jar, which luckily for me was almost empty by then.
About that time my pregnant wife looks out the window and starts screaming, seeing me with my hand burning like a candle wick.
I immediately turned and fell to the ground with my hand underneath me, putting out the flames.
This being the late 60’s, they had just started recommending cooling down burns by soaking them in ice water.
So that’s what I did, keeping it in the ice water until it no longer hurt when I lifted it out. This took about 4 hours.
I guess I was really lucky because though my hand was bright red for a few days, the only blister I had was one on my middle finger and thumb where I was gripping the heavy glass threads on the jar.
So be careful if you try this.
Fire ants were MacGyver’s toughest adversary, but he whooped them, in the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZmpS5ebn9s
LOL!
When I was a kid in Lakeland, until the water pistol melted due to adverse gasoline chemistry, I used to use a candle and the water pistol to immolate ant hills.
Great fun! And, I never got burned!
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