By Keith Mickler
UGA-Floyd County Cooperative Extension
Fire ants can ruin picnics, football games and outdoor enjoyment year-round.
Treating fire ant colonies in the fall can help you edge out future colonies, lessening
the likelihood they'll steal your chips, nip at your toes or just be a doggone pain in the rear.
If I can steal a line from the great sports writer Norman Arey, "Fire ants blaze homeowners, to win by a landslide; NO NO,
homeowners wise-up and cool those doggone fire ants. Homeowners win by a mile."
"Fire ant colonies have been growing throughout the summer and have reached their greatest size," said Dan Suiter,
a Cooperative Extension entomologist with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
"Attacking those colonies now will help next spring when they start to swarm again."
Fire ants are easier to kill in the fall, he said, for four main reasons:
-First, they're more active. That makes it easier to treat them with fire ant baits. "You can use fire ant baits any time
of the year," Suiter said. "But they're most effective when the ants are actively foraging for food." Fire ants are most
active in spring and fall, when daytime temperatures are between 70 and 85 degrees, he said. Actively foraging ants
will pick up bait and carry it into the nest within the first hour or so. To see if your ants are rummaging for food, you
can do a not so scientific test in the backyard by breaking up a few potato chips (BBQ is preferred) and placing them
in the yard where you think you have ants. If the ants are active, the chips will be gone by the next day. If the ants are
inactive, don't apply the bait. Check again in a few days.
-Second, in the cooler weather of fall, fire ants aren't too deep in the ground. That makes them easier to kill with a
mound-drench, granular, dust or aerosol contact insecticide. When you use those products, Suiter said, it's critical
to treat when the queen and brood are close to the surface.
-Third, in the fall, you're treating when many fire ant
colonies are very young. Fire ants have sex all year long, but they're most actively mating in the spring, he said.
Mated queens fly away and establish new colonies. By fall, these colonies are entrenched but still fairly small.
"Quite often, you don't even know they're there," he said. "But if you don't treat them, they'll become the
big mounds you see next year." How do you treat for fire ants if you don't know where they are? Broadcasting fire ant
bait is the first step in the ongoing program Suiter recommends. Use fresh bait, he said, and apply it using the label directions.
Never apply baits using a spreader that's been used to spread fertilizer. Fertilizer can spoil the smell of the bait.
Use only a new spreader, dedicated to the use of spreading fire ant baits. Apply the bait in swaths, crisscrossing swaths if needed,
until the specified amount is applied evenly. Treat individual problem mounds with an approved contact product. Be sure to
follow directions carefully. Don't misuse.
Hey, I was just kidding about using BBQ chips, but that would be a cool science experiment for a kid. Which flavor of potato
chips do fire ants like best?
-Fourth, and the one thing that makes fall the single best time to treat fire ants, Suiter said, is that it's followed by winter. Extreme cold is
tough on fire ants. This makes baits even more effective in the fall. Baits take a long time to work. They weaken colonies and make them
less able to respond to the challenges of winter weather. The networked tunnels of a fire ant mound are constantly collapsing, Suiter said.
Moving deeper into the ground requires a lot of work. Anything you can do to reduce the number of ants available to gather food and maintain
the mound structure makes the colony less able to survive the winter. "Winter is an ally in controlling fire ants," Suiter said.
"Reducing their numbers in the fall can help push them over the edge in the winter."
Keith Mickler is the County Coordinator and agriculture agent for The University of Georgia/Floyd County
Cooperative Extension. Located at 12 East 4th Ave, Rome, GA 30161 (706) 295-6210.
Office hours are Monday-Friday 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension - Learning for Life.
Agriculture and Natural Resources, Family and Consumer Sciences, 4-H Youth. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution.
To obtain extension publications please visit our web site www.ugaextension.com or contact your county Cooperative
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