Individual mounds may be treated with a liquid drench of insecticide or an insecticidal bait.
Mound Treatment By Drenching
Mound drenches, which are insecticides diluted with water, work as contact insecticides. To be effective, the drench must trickle down through the mound and contact most of the fire ants. Ants contacted by the drench die in less than 24 hours. Drenches should be used when the risk of human contact with fire ants is high and the fire ant infestation must be eliminated immediately. High-risk areas include home lawns, school grounds, parks, and other areas frequently used by the public.
Best control usually results in spring and fall when temperatures are between 70 and 85 F. Control with drench treatments is more difficult to achieve during very hot summer months because the ants remain deep within their mounds and are hard to reach with liquid insecticides.
The following procedure is recommended for drenching mounds.
•Following label directions, pour the correct amount of water into a bucket or sprinkler can. Add the prescribed amount of insecticide, mix well (without splashing), then gently pour the diluted insecticide over the surface of the mound. Apply the drench at a rate of approximately 1 gallon per 6 inches of mound diameter. At this rate, for example, a mound measuring 12 inches across would receive 2 gallons of insecticide drench. The amount of drench applied is more important than the concentration of insecticide in the drench.
•Thoroughly wet the ground to a distance of about 2 feet around the mound.
•Sometimes the drench does not kill all fire ants in a treated colony. The surviving ants will construct small mounds within 10 to 15 feet of the parent colony. Several days after the application, search the area around the treated colony for new mounds and treat them with the insecticide drench.
•Keep children and pets away from the treated area until it is dry.
Recommended Liquids for Mound Drenching:
Talstar One Excellent residual insecticide with a broad label including termites and 75 other pests. Demon WP Insecticide
For residual and contact control of many insect pests. Mound Treatment By Baiting
Ant baits also can be used to treat individual mounds. Baits are insecticides that have been mixed with ant attractants. Worker ants carry particles of the bait back to the mound and feed them to the queen. Although the insecticide kills the queen, workers may be active inside the mound for several weeks before the colony finally disappears.
Baits are fairly slow acting but easier to apply than mound drenches. Therefore, they are best used in situations where many mounds must be treated, when water for mixing mound drenches is difficult or impossible to obtain, or when the risk of human contact is low and there is no urgent need to eliminate the infestation.
The active ingredients in ant baits are rapidly degraded by high temperature, high humidity, and intense sunlight. The baits can be rendered ineffective in a few hours by these conditions. Follow this procedure when using baits.
•Apply the bait according to label directions. Sprinkle the recommended amount around each mound but not on the mound itself. It is best to apply the bait in the early evening.
•Most bait labels state that the material should not be applied within 6 hours after precipitation occurs (either rainfall or heavy dew). Moisture tends to make the bait's attractant oils rancid and less appealing to foraging ants.
Mound Treatment by Broadcast Application
Broadcast treatment is the distribution of an insecticidal bait over a large infested area containing many fire ant colonies. One disadvantage is that broadcast treatments can disrupt native ant communities as well as fire ant infestations. Broadcast treatments can result in an ant community changing from one that is dominated by native ants to one dominated by fire ants. On the other hand, in areas with very high mound densities, broadcast applications allow large areas to be treated quickly.
Areas of high public use can be protected by spring and fall broadcast applications of ant bait. If the area becomes reinfested with fire ants during the summer months, individual mounds can be treated with an insecticide drench or ant bait, although as noted previously control is more difficult when temperatures are high.
Indoors
The key to reducing the threat of fire ant infestations indoors is prevention, which means removing exposed food sources that may attract these insects. If fire ants enter a building, the treatment objective must be to reduce the potential for accidental stings as quickly as possible. Insecticides labeled for indoor use, particularly pyrethroids, can be used in homes and public buildings to drive foraging ants outside or away from high-use or critical areas, such as kitchens, recreation rooms, patient rooms, operating rooms, or intensive care units.
Although baits work well for many ants that invade buildings, they should not be used to control fire ants indoors because they are more likely to attract additional fire ants, increasing the chance that an occupant will be stung. For this reason, it is important to positively identify fire ants as the pest in question before applying any control measures. Ultimately, long-term control of fire ants indoors can be achieved only by locating and treating their mound or mounds, preferably with an insecticide drench.
Fire Ant Killer Granular Baits
When it comes to fire ants, killing the "queen" ant is vital to colony elimination and control. Once the queen is killed, the colony will have no chance of relocating. Baiting is an effective method for Fire ant control because it allows foraging ants to feed the queen.
View all Fire Ant Control products
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