Has your Florida property been invaded by little fire ants? Although they are small, they can cause many problems for people, animals and plants. If you are looking for the best way to control them, look no further than Fire Ant Control, LLC. Our services are fully licensed and insured and guaranteed for four months.
Headquartered in Bokeelia, Florida, Fire Ant Control, LLC and our sister companies serve the entire imported fire ant quarantine area of the southeastern U.S., and we are capable of treating up to 1,000 acres per day.
Where Did They Come From?
Red Imported Fire Ants were accidentally brought to the United States sometime in the 1930’s through the Port of Mobile, Alabama. Most likely brought in soil on a ship, they quickly made themselves at home and invaded much of the south. They are currently found in 15 southern states, and occasionally can be found as far north as Maryland and west as California.
How Do You Know You Have Fire Ants?
Red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) adore sunshine, warmth, humidity and moist land, and prefer watered lawns, golf courses, highway shoulders, lake shores and river banks as nesting grounds. The telltale signs of fire ant colonies are round, flattened mounds of loose soil. They are master architects, building and living in a vast network of interconnected subterranean tunnels that extend outward and downward from these central mounds.
When fire ant mounds are disturbed, hundreds of worker ants will rise up out of the ground and aggressively sting an intruder. They can also cause extensive damage to gardens and crops, cement slabs, air-conditioning equipment, and electrical wires.
Within each colony are workers and queens. Workers build the nests (mounds), take care of the queen and her eggs, scavenge for food, and defend the colony. Queens can live for two to six years and lay from 1,500 to 5,000 eggs per day, which explains why fire ants multiply so quickly.
Outside of calling licensed pest management professionals like Fire Ant Control, there is no “best way” to kill fire ants. The key to controlling these troublemakers is to identify them quickly and take action to minimize the damage they cause.
Do Home Remedies Work?
If you search the Internet, you are bound to find home remedies for controlling fire ants – everything from orange peels, instant grits and gasoline, to bleach, dishwashing liquid, vinegar, and diatomaceous earth.
While you may succeed at killing a few ants, these remedies typically just cause the fire ants to move to another location and wreak havoc elsewhere. Colonies frequently move and can actually build a new mound several hundred feet away almost overnight.
Can you drown them? Unfortunately, groups of fire ants won’t drown. If their nest floods, they emerge from underground, link their legs together, and form a watertight ball or “living raft” that can float on the water. Worker ants carefully protect the queen in the center and carry any eggs along until they discover dry soil where they can re-establish their colony. Some fire ant rafts can survive afloat for up to 12 days.
Little fire ants in Florida pose a great problem if you happen to have a colony living on your property. Say goodbye to them by hiring Fire Ant Control, LLC to treat your property three times a year and prevent further fire ant colonization. Call us at (239) 312-8200 for a free estimate.