Fire Ant Control Protocol

Basics

• Check Fire Ant Distribution chart to see if this is relevant
• User: Eric here, in Florida we have a PILE of them so I’m making this page just to document what all i know/have dug up

Protocol

• Survey the site and place Marking Flags on all the ant hills
• At the same time some sort of pesticide can be applied, or an alternative treatment used
• Then wait a few days (need to double check the different pesticide options and time until they should have worked+plug info in here)
• Continue to check and reapply as needed
• Upon the anthill being confirmed “dead”, Disturb/Fill in the hill and remove the flag

Further Research Needed

• Pesricide Options (Mainly to seek low-bio persistent options and/or options that would be easily made in a biorefinery (preferably without Fluorine Compounds etc)
• Gathering Information on Alternate Treatments
• Seemingly Promising Options are:
  • Drenching in a Detergent-Water Mixture
    • Gets past their wax coating, and disturbs surface tension thus preventing them from floating away
  • Dry Ice or Liquid Nitrogen
    • Confirmed to work well with Yellow Jackets , Main issue is acquiring the materials, BUT either via the development of Home/Makerspace Scale Cryocoolers or something akin to Dry Ice from CO2 Fire Extinguishers it is doable.
• How far Fire Ant Populations move over a given period of time, aids in Routine Maintenance Scheduling or potentially even Eradication Efforts in areas where they are an Invasive Species

Disproven Methods

Grits as a Pesticide

• User: Eric Here, at a community garden i did some work with, in attempting to be all ‘’organic’’ (Notably ‘’’Without’’’ the research/intent behind Integrated Pest Management / Permaculture , GRANTED their hearts were in the right place but yeah) they tried this
• The rationale is that grits swell when wetted so they would do this inside the ant after being eaten whole
• What ‘’actually’’ happens is you essentially feed the ants
• A YouTube Channel Actually Tested this in an ant farm:
  • Actually done on wild ant hills, not in an ant farm. Granted that gets into ethical issues and if not even that just may get kicked off of YouTube? Would be good data to have though for each method (if it doesn’t already exist)
  • A Video by the YouTube Channel “Cody the Car Guy” Titled “Fact or Fiction Corn meal or Grits KILLS Ants
  • Jump to timecode at 3:25-6:25 for the conclusion

External Links

• The Wikipedia Page on Red Imported Fire Ants
• A Video by the YouTube Channel “b87601044” Titled “Manage Red Imported Fire Ants by Liquid nitrogen freezing”
  • Overkill method, but may be more instantaneous?