Just found the first mound on my prop the other day. I used the boiling water trick, 2x in the same day. I still need to go back and stir it up and make sure i got hem and watch for new mounds. Boy was i bummed!

yep, I hate those things I got stung countless times last year and had been lucky this year until I went to the neighbors garden for some seed beans, the nest was under the bushes and I stepped in the middle and they got me 5x before I could get my shoe off..Oh man, they hurt, then hurt some more, then itch and then blister! And itch some more. and I HAVE TO SCRATCH, I wake myself up in the middle of the night scratching,,,errr I wish someone would figure out a SURE FIRE way to get rid of them!

My hosre stepped in a patch of them here too, I was trying to keep her out of it, but she kept going back to the area they were in and her hoof went STOMP right in the middle of the nest... I thought OH MY GOSH she is going to bolt, but thankfully she didn't she just stomp and until she got them off and I took my foot and tried to scrape them off too. Apperantly they didn't affect her like they did me!...

I have poured boiling water over them while they were in a planter with no holes in it, guess what? They survived it, I could not believe it, there was steam coming off of it until the water cooled down and I though..HA-HA I got you you little creeps, but then I started seeing movement. They were coming to the top and climbing out over the sides. This was in a window box type planter so it was shallow. I KNOW they were in the boiling water in there...there is no way they couldn't have been.
I also dug up a nest in the yard, poured boiling water in it 3 maybe even 4 times, but I know it was 3 times for sure...I thought I had killed them too, nope within the next day or so, they just built an opening a few inches away from the original one I had messed up, I have one of those "THE CLAW" things and used that to dig up more dirt after each water bath so it went pretty far down. I was SURE I had killed them...but after I trapped them in the planter and watched them crawl out I knew boiling water wouldn't work, it just makes them move to another part of the yard. I did the planter after I did the yard.

It is scary...what's next with these things?

:( Fran

The nests can go as far as 18 FEET into the ground and connect with other nests far far away too. There's really not much you can do to really get them all. I think I've managed to drive them off my property, but when my neighbors treat theirs they come back. When I buy a big bag of poison I try to go around to my neighbors houses and treat their mounds too. We're all like family around here and they don't mind. I try to drive them as far away as possible, but eventually they come back.

They love koolaid. If you set out little cups of it all over the place they will crawl in and drown. You have to put some sort of mesh over the top though so the bumbles don't get in.

To my knowledge, the only way to truly get rid of fire ants is to scatter the bait granules all over the place. Baiting the mounds is less effective than scattering the bait wholesale over the area, I don't know why. As most of us have found, disturbing the nests (with boiling water or whatever) is ineffective - the ants just move. Fire ants can have more than one queen in a colony, and can have multiple mounds per colony, so the only effective control is to kill the queens with poison granules brought back to the nest by worker ants. I hate to use poisons, and I hate to sound like an ad for the big chemical companies, but in this case - I hate fire ants more!!!!

All I can say is that the person who invents a good method for ridding your property of these little demons will be rich!! This is one of the places I have no problem with chemicals. I also am not a big fan of using chemicals. I have so much wildlife and enjoy it so much, I don't want to put anything out that can harm my dogs or the local wildlife. However, even with chemicals, I've still got a ton of them. I would be happy just to drive them back out of my immediate garden and yard area. They are everywhere in my fields (my property is old tree farm property), just wish they would stay out there.

I have poured boiling water on them and watched them float around in it and live.

The broadcast bait is supposed to be effective; there are also some organic methods (probably less effective). I have tried them but am never thorough enough (don't use enough and find all the mounds).

seahorse

Well. stung again yesterday, and NOT in my own yard...those little things are everywhere...I got it in the worse place, the soft skin between you thumb and index finger...
It hurts to try and write, it is exactly where the pen/pencil falls!!! ERRR...
Just found a new nest in my yard yesterday....I HATE THESE THINGS...

If someone is going to invent something to kill/get rid of them I wish they would hurry up and do it!

Tired of getting attacked....
:( Fran

Gnomey is right about the nests being far underground. Dibbit is also right about the best way to get rid of them is to broadcast the bait. This is why...

Adult ants don't eat regular food - they forage far from their nests to bring back food for the larva to eat. The larva eat the food and product an exudate like honeydew which the adults, including the queen, lap up. For the bait to work, it has to be brought back to the nest, fed to the larva, exudated, then lapped up by the adults and the queen - so it can't be so toxic that it kills the adults who are foraging, or the larva who are exudating, very quickly. Generally baits take a couple of weeks to kill the colony but it will work.

The ants won't take the bait if it is just dumped on the mound, or if it gets really wet, or if it is rancid, or if it too hot or too cold outside. (over 90, under 65)
The boiling water dosn't work because most of the ants, the larva and the queen are too deep underground. Koolaide dosn't work, because at best it just kills a few individuals, not the queen. Insecticide drenches will work, but they really do a number on the whole soil ecosystem - and if the queen escapes, she will just set up a new colony near by.

I learned about this when I took the master gardener couse in Houston, Texas - they devoted 4 hours of class time to nothing but Fire Ants.

My mom told me she saw it on tv that the tunnels are 8 ft deep and as long and sometimes longer. I knew it because she told me, BUT when you can see the ones on top of the ground, it STILL makes you want to do something right then!

I may end up investing in the ground spreadalbe bait stuff, it depends on how many more times I get stung this summer!... They HURT!

:) Fran