Garden

Fire Ants

Friend or Foe?

If you're a Southern gardener, you're reading this with some doubt, I know. I'm not totally convinced Fire Ants should be listed on the 'beneficial' list yet, but there are some benefits if you know their habits.

Foe:

Far outweighs any benefits unless scientists can unearth some strong recommendations in the ant's favor. In our hot summers, they are the cause of more house fires than any other means, as they crawl in the electrical boxes, breaker boxes, and either nest or die in droves. When one is shocked, it sends out a signal of either pleasure or distress, causing many of it's co-workers to flock to the scene and die in masses.

By keeping nesting sites around electric poles at a minimum, and checking your outside electric supply frequently, you usually can avoid a build-up of fire ant bodies in your outlets.

Farm machinery and vehicles are also targets for ant nests. A board left on the ground overnight or a field of baled hay will have small colonies nesting underneath in a short time.

Killer Instinct:

Fire ants are attracted to protein sources and moisture sources, and so are a real threat to late spring and summer calving operations. Ranchers have learned to plan their seasons to avoid heavy calving activity during the time of the greatest ant activity.

However, this same draw holds true in our area wildlife, and they have no such recourse. Many lives are lost in the ground dwellers and low - nesting field birds. Fire ants can bore through a pecan shell as easily as an egg shell, so birds and domestic poultry are considered sources of food to the ant colony. Late born fawns are especially at risk because they have an inborn pattern to remain stationary for long periods at a time. Even under an attack, a fawn will rarely move out of range. For this reason, I'd like to caution deer hunters to learn counts first on the total population before hunting the adult deer in heavily infested fire ant areas.

Human Reactions:

A number of people, especially children are allergic to multiple fire ant stings, and care should be taken to have an emergency action plan implemented. Your doctor may recommend Epinephrin to counteract a reaction to stings.

In the Garden:

Fire Ants are dairy farmers! I was surprised to see worker ants moving aphids around on my eggplants. I was overjoyed at first, thinking they were eating the smaller insects, but they shepherd aphids around then haul them back to the nest where they extract the honeydew from them.

A documentary program revealed a colony of ants and aphids underground. An ant would 'bop' the aphid on the top of it's head and when it reacted in surprise, a drop of honeydew would be emitted. The ant would collect this bead and another would take it's place.

Some ant colonies have realized they can utilize a butterfly caterpillar in the same manner, and they have a supply of honeydew all winter long.

Adaptable:

Fire ants are moving farther and farther North in their endless drive to forage and nest. Cold temperatures are the barriers against Fire Ant colonization, but it's been noted that nests are deeper underground, and better able to sustain the colony in colder climates.

They also have developed a new survival strategy called multiple queening. When first imported, they limited each nest to one queen. If she dies, the nest dies with her.

It has been thought (unproven) that the practice of homeowners of shoveling one nest onto another was the cause of this, but it's more probably that this is just another chain in the adaptability of the Fire Ants themselves.

Organic Answers

PPE: (Personal Protective Equipment)

In dealing with Fire Ants, realize they react viciously to disturbances of any kind, and are likely to be nesting or foraging anywhere. Wear leather gloves when moving debris or working in the garden. Thin cloth gloves will actually hinder the removal of Fire Ants, as they bury themselves in the fabric, looking for their attacker.

For this reason, canvas or cloth tennis shoes are ill suited for protection when working in Fire Ant infested areas. John favors his heavy leather workboots, while slick rubber 'clogs' are my primary farmstead footwear. These clogs are available from several garden specialty distributors, and the shape is such that it's difficult for ants to get a purchase on them to swarm up. (Imagine wooden Dutch clogs.) If I do get into an infestation, the clogs rinse off quickly under a hose.

Wear a hat! If you work outside in Texas in the summer without a hat, you are already in some danger from the sun, but ants, too, may 'shower' down on you from a low tree limb or structure.

Eliminating the Ants:

If you don't make the attempt to keep the ant colonies in check, eventually, they'll nest closer to your own home and outside living spaces, foraging in your cupboards, and feeding in your own bed!

Some reports of success just by taking a shovelful of dirt and ants from one nest and putting it on another mound. As stated above, this might be one reason for multiple queening.

Very hot water poured on the nest will usually cause that particular colony to disband or move. The time to do these is early in the ant activity, when an actual nest is still mounded and can be easily spotted. Later in the season, the newly emerging ants do not mound as readily, and it's much harder to apply any of the usual solutions. Howard Garrett suggests a solution of ground citrus peels, and a few organic recipes may be found at his web site,"The Dirt Doctor".

When you notice dead ants in small piles on the topsoil, in pathways, and other exposed areas, the current year cycle has been completed. The new ants are usually more aggressive and easier to incite to attack as well as being more difficult to spot.

Baits such as Amdro work, but they're not approved for use within an organic garden area. Check with your agriculture extension agency for distances, and exact method of use. Bait poisons use a small amount of poison in something to act as a lure. The ants take the poison to the queen, so contact with yards, pets or children can be at a very minimal risk.

One of the newer forms of organic approach is ANTidote. There may be other names on the market, this is one I'm familiar with. It is a nematode that attacks the queens & larvae themselves. It makes the queen, and therefore the whole colony sick and confused. Worker ants infected with the nematodes will try to rebuild a new site elsewhere, but have already spread the disease. The drawback to this form of Fire Ant control is it's expense, and another is the fact that the nematodes work best in early Spring, often before the major fire ant colonies have begun to appear. At the onset of hot weather, the nematodes burrow farther underground than the ants may have colonized.

At one Organic Teaching Farm, I learned of planting my garden beds into a 'herringbone' pattern. The benefits were primarily so that a worker could tend to the greatest square feet of garden while exposing himself to the least ant activity.

Other benefits are better crop pollination, (in corn, for example), and water conservation as well as ease of winter protection if such is necessary for tender crops.

Fire Ants as Beneficials? Some tests have been taken to determine the nutrient content of soil turned by exposed fire ant nests. These ants have the ability to travel farther underground and in very hot weather, 'percolate' throughout the topsoil, looking for food sources. It is believed that the ants may help aerate topsoil and bring nutrients from deeper underground than plants normally would have access to. As stated above, food sources to a colony of fire ants are almost anything, and Japanese Beetle grubs and other garden pests are easy sources to an ant colony.

Also, though I have no scientific proof, I'm beginning to believe I'm benefiting from having the Fire Ants in the goat pens themselves.

Goats are close herd animals, and internal parasites are a problem in most Southern herds. It has been discovered that worms are mutating fast enough that they are becoming immune to most of the popular anthelmenics on the market.

At veterinarian suggestions, it's now routine to administer dewormers every 30 to 45 days, and change frequently the type used. Besides poisoning the parasites and creating an immunity at a much more rapid rate, herdsmen may also be eliminating ants and other residents from the soil in the corrals. (Ants, who would normally feed on the shed ocysts, larvae and worms themselves, and are acting as beneficials by effectively breaking the cycle.)

Rather than give out poisons routinely to my dairy herd, I prepare a microscopic slide of fecal material and look to see if there is a heavy infestation or not.

And, again, so my own 'microclimate' of insects, parasites, and host goats do not become unaffected by my chosen dewormers, I only change from one kind to another on an annual basis.

It has been noted that the processing of labor and birth commonly generates increased worm activity, we now try to schedule this event in the early, cooler months, deworming before the ant colonies can be severely affected.

This is not something I am recommending, but I believe one problem area (Fire Ants) may be the solution to another dilemma (internal parasites with no effective treatments) in the near future.

Text and images copyright 1998 Martha Wells