Houston Lawn & Garden

Fire Ant Mound

Today is a nice beautiful cool sunny day here in Houston and it seemed like a good idea to snap a few pictures of the garden to show y’all how things are coming along.  Unfortunately I got side-tracked when I saw the inevitable FIRE ANT MOUND which plagues EVERY lawn in Houston around this time of the year.  If you are new to the area and haven’t had to deal with these bastards before then let me advise you that they are not something that you want to just let go, especially if you have kids or pets that play around on the lawn.  Just one false step onto one of these mounds and you’ll wish that you had decided to live in the concrete jungle instead.

FireAnt Worker

Here is a close up of one of these little buggers that I picked up from the Texas A&M Imported Fire Ant Research and Management Project, which appears to be the authority on trying to control these guys.  There is where I found out that they are not even native Texans!  “The red imported fire ant was imported around the 1930′s and has spread to infest more than 260 million acres of land in nine southeastern states, including all or portions of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma”.  It says that they came from South America as stow-aways coming into ports along the Gulf Coast…without a GREEN CARD.

Fire Ants on a Boot

The way that you’ll know that you stepped on a fire ant pile is not when one of them stings you, but when 50 of them sting you at the EXACT SAME TIME! “Fire ants are sensitive to vibration or movement and tend to sting when the object they are on moves. For example, when fire ants swarm up a person’s leg, the person jerks or moves. One ant stings and this triggers the other ants to sting in response.”  Aggies are usually the butt-end of jokes about them not being the sharpest tools in the shed, but I can tell you from experience that they are right on the money about these ants.  Here are some more important facts about Fire Ant stings from the Aggie site:

Are fire ant stings lethal?

Only a very small portion of the population will experience lethal allergic reactions.

What should I do if I get stung by fire ants?

There isn’t much you can do, except watch the affected area for excessive swelling, itching or redness, or other symptoms like shortness of breath, thickening of the tongue, sweating, etc. that could indicate a systemic allergic reaction. Treat stings as you would stings of other insects and keep them clean and intact to avoid secondary infections.

What if I have an allergic reaction to a fire ant sting?

Seek medical help immediately! If you are uncertain how your body will react, be sure to let someone know what has happened. It is best to be with other people that can assist you, if necessary.

Fire Ant KILLER

Now for the important part…how to get rid of these pests.  First let me say that I’m not here to promote a brand or sell you product, but if you do support the advertisers here it does help to keep our site alive.  From experience, the best thing that works are granules that you apply AROUND BUT NOT ON the mound and then soak them into the ground with about a gallon of water.  You see, the fire ant mound is like an iceberg, what you see above the ground is only 10% of the story.  Under the ground they have constructed a vast array of tunnels and that is where you want the  granules to seep into.  I’ve seen knuckleheads out there pouring lighter fluid and gasoline on the mounds and then lighting them!  All that does is make these guys dig in deeper and spread out wider,  it leaves a big burn spot in your lawn and, and proves to everyone in the neighborhood that you’re a redneck.  The granules leave no trace after they do there thing and I don’t usually see many instances of these ‘illegal immigrants’ setting up a mound just a few weeks later a couple of feet away.  Just stay on top of them and you’ll be good-to-go.