How can we kill fire ants hills in our yard?

Question

Do you know anything?

Answer 1

Hi, I found some links for you.
I hope they are valuable info as from what I hear Fire Ants are not what anybody or thing wants around them.

Take Care, & best results to You,
Dave

Answer 2

Yeah - several of these answers made me laugh: using gasoline, etc! Tons of fun, watching those suckers burn. Sometimes I take the high-pressure jet spray of water to the mound, just to make them spend their time fixing it back, rather than doing what they'd otherwise be doing.

But the real answer is: you can't. And that's a scary thought. Yes, all the products mentioned so far, do kill many of the ants, and maybe sometimes a queen or two; but there's nothing that wipes them out altogether. Scary, indeed, that scientists have been working on this issue for years and the ants are yet multiplying. I live in Georgia: go to anyone's yard and you will see fire ant mounds, unless they go out once a week and apply poison, which more than likely, only serves to move the ants, not entirely kill the mound.
Amdro may work best, but don't expect to erradicate the ants. At best, you will subdue them, or move them somewhere else.

Answer 3

Ignore all other advice and use AMDRO. It is a little more expensive than the others but, of the Fire Ant killers on the market, it is the only one I have found that will kill an established ant mound, queen and all. The others kill some of the workers and the queen just moves nearby to get away from the insecticided area.
Last year I stumbled on something that I guess accidentally worked. In mid-spring I treated the whole yard with a granular lawn insecticide for another unrelated insect problem, and I had zero ant mounds all season. I know it wasn't just the weather or anything, because my very next door neighbor still has big mounds active right now, even in this (mild) winter.

Answer 4

Andro probably works the best. There is also an ant killer you can spread on your entire lawn. Can't think of the name right now; but ask at Lowe's. I put it on last year and spot treated the ant mounds and still don't have any fire ants in my yard.
Another solution and lots of fun too is to take a shovel, scoop up a shovel full of ant mound and dump it on another ant mound. The two colonies will fight like heck and kill each other off. You'll need a lawn chair placed 5 or 6 feet away from the mound, a cold beer and maybe a few friends to place bets with on the winning colony.

Answer 5

Ants Hills

Answer 6

Don't use Amdro or other chemicals. They do not work and are not necessary. If these products worked, we would have eliminated the ants by now.

You can use Citrus Oil (found at many garden centers) mixed with water. I live in Texas and rarely have fire ants. When I do, I use the citrus oil.

First off, if you have fire ants, this is a sign of a deeper problem with your soil health. Easy enough to fix. Go to www.dirtdoctor.com for more info.

Answer 7

I saw a guy on a nature channel pour hot lead down the ant hill (lots of it), and then an hour later he dug the whole thing out, and it was this massive lead version of the ants' entire tunnel system. Amazing. Science project, anyone?

Not practical at all, but it totally annihilated those suckers -- and they were the scary half-inch long African ants with humongous, child-sized hills.

Answer 8

My experience is that you have to basically poison your whole yard to keep them out. Spot treating just chases them around the neighborhood. Any of the residual lawn insecticides seem to work for this approach. This doesn't appeal to everybody. So if you want to be low-tox, you just need to learn to live with their affectionate love bites.
As the baits go, I agree that Amdro is the best; but It's not the fastest. For a quick kill, use Orthene. That's some really nasty stuff and you can actually watch the ants stagger out and keel over.

Answer 9

Ant-B-Gone works very well (Home Depot, garden centre). Be v.v.v. careful with these ants. They can even detect soil disturbance if you are walking about.

If its a real emergency and can't wait to get to the store, pour boiling water down the nest (stand up and wear boots) and then hot-foot-it the hell outta there. This will work for for a time. Kills ants and larvae.

Answer 10

Grits! Yes, those bland bits of ground corn that you find in southern groceries (somehow I was raised down here and I still don't like 'em). Not instant, you want the ones that you have to boil for a while, sprinkle them (dry) on the ant pile and they take it and eat it and feed it around. It might take a little longer than some of the other suggestions here, but it does do away with putting poison that does you no good on your lawn.

Answer 11

Get the Ortho fire ant killer. I live where fire ants first came into this country and I know what works.