I remember the fire ant marching North :( I was hoping that our weather would be too cold for them. Over the years that marched up this way, we where in a heat wave w/ a droughts in the summer, now I wonder how cold is too cold for the fire ants, how much more will they go north. I know the site said they are not sure how they got in Huston or where they came from... But one has to wonder, if someone didnt "plant" the little guys on our soil, hoping to kill the fire ants, but not knowing full of what the crazy ants would do. and how does a African queens escape from an South American lab (AKA; Killer bees) furthermore, why does it always seem that when I Insect gets loose, it has to be a nasty one. what happened to all the good Insects. the site, it also said that they kill out electrical meaning they also invade inside your home, and wipe out our ladybugs. But what I don't understand is that it looks like they could have been control, and still could, if the EPA would allow a stronger ant killer to be available to the Exterminators. for me it leaves too many questions and not enough answers. Like if they knew about the ants since 2002, why have they not done something about it.. If an exterminator is charging someone $1200 to kill out the ants at her parents home ( if that is true, and it really does kill the ants) then there you go..

I have similar problems with killing fire ants in my containers. None of the home remedies worked for me. Amdro probably would not be bad since it is a bait but can take up to three weeks to kill the mound. That would allow too much time for the ants to do damage. The last thing I used was Sevin. Yes, many people do not like it but it has been around a long time and is approved for gardens. I just sprinkled it around the mound in the container and also where they were coming into the container (it was on the ground). It seems to have killed the entire mound. I watered a couple of days later and no ants came out. Spinosad would work but is hard to find and more expensive than sevin. I had quit using sevin since it is so hard on bees and I have ingested enough when I use to use it on dogs. Does not work good on ticks but at the time was about all there was. It was before the various skin spot treatments came out. When I dusted the dogs, me and the dogs got covered. Never had any side effects but still not good. Dusting on the mound seems much safer.

Our chickens, especially the Key West chickens, love to dig up the fire ant hills and eat up all the white baby ants. They do it every time they find a hill and the ants get mad and leave. We have almost 4 acres which was covered with fire ants before we moved in with chickens. Now its rare that I have fire ants. Every now and again I find some that set up housekeeping in the garden and I call the chickens over and they dig it all up. They aren't all that crazy about eating the adult ants but once they find out about those 'tasty' (to them) little white larvae in the ant holes they will remember and dig them up and the adults will move shop. Guineas also do a great job of removing ants.

I know your dedication to gardening and enviroment so I will spend extra time in hopes of winning a new convert for my campaign to eradicate Fire Ants while bringing Horned Lizards back in Texas. When Fire Ants first appeared tons of bait was broadcast from airplanes. The bait dealt a deadly blow to Red Harvesters while leaving FAs unchecked. Red Harvesters are the Horned Lizard's primary diet so lizards also disappeared. If bait actually worked we would have been rid of FAs long ago ago. Timing is everything for my method using about equal labor and far less expense but most important is far more friendly to enviroment. The weapon is any insecticide which is deadly to ants or termites. I've used a different ones off the shelf and most were effective. It doen't need residual quility,in fact it;s best if it doesn't when taking other insects in consideration. If instructions are for yard and foundation treatment, double reccomended amount of insectacide to water. If instructions are for below ground application or treating ground contact wood,use only reccomended or less insectacide. Timeing rely's on weather conditions when ants move eggs and winged ants into freshly constructed above ground mound. During typical Tx summers it most often that occure;s briefly in early morning following heavy rain. There's far more opertunities from early Fall to late spring so I seldom mess with them during Summer. When the mound is kicked open the white eggs and winged ants are easy to see and you will notice a mad scramble to move eggs back insjde and below ground while winged ants wander aimlessly like they don't know how to save themselves. Opening a single mound is only done to see if timing is right and then only until you become familar with the behavior. DO NOT DESTURB MOUNDS BEFORE OR FOLLOWING TREATMENT. However you can desturb mounds after a couple days to guage how succesful the treatment was. If you see more than 3 ants the treatment was less successful than it should have been. After 3 or 4 days it isn't uncommon to see a new mound within 10 feet about 5% the size of origional. Sometimes thats scouts that were away and/or lucky escapees but they can't reproduce. Just in case a queen made it to the new mound mark small mounds you come accross to make them easy to find next time conditions are right for treatment. Treatment calls for pumping sprayer to max pressure and setting noozle to stream. On a half basketball size mound,punture it in about 6-8 places injecting 1-2 tablespoons in each place then a quick circle just outside base of mound for any little guys that dodged spray inside and exit looking for something to sting. The amount of insectacide used on an acre is a fraction of what it would be if spraying ground as most often done. The benifit of not broadcasting is enormous from the standpoint of non target bugs that are spared. If Red Harvesters previously inhabited your land they will eventually return when a bred queen builds a nest that might go unnoticed for months while she populates the nest. Had you been broadcasting the unnoticed queen would have been killed,not to mention other things. If Horned lizards were once common on your property they will soon follow,,,,,,,,,,,,,if we win enough converts because unlike the harvester coloney that can exist on 5 acres while surounding land is poisoned,lizards require larger range. Once eastablised you will not have FAs near a harvester colony. If you wish,you can use Amdro alongside but imo it isn't neccessary plus it will kill foraging Harvesters. I wish you luck and would love to hear what you think after a few months. I'm no tree hugger but this is one of a few environmental issues I'm passionate about.