Fire Ants
Fire ants dwell in many of the hotter parts of the world and in the majority of countries and in most languages, from Thai to French and English, the word 'fire' is part of its name.
This is because the feeling of pain after having been stung, not bitten, by one of these ants is similar to the pain received from a burn.
Most ants that produce pain in humans bite first and then spray acid into the cut, but fire ants bite in order to get a grip and then sting with the body.
The substance that they inject is an alkaloid venom which is painful to humans.
It is also an insecticide and some observers think that the nurse-worker fire ants spray this venom over the eggs to ward off infection.
Fire ants are easily distinguished by their red to copper-brown heads and dark to black bodies.
They are between two and six millimetres in length and their mandibles or jaws look like jagged garden secateurs.
Fire ants make nests in the ground and often build up big heaps of soil, although sometimes this is disguised by a fallen tree of a heap of vegetation.
The nests can be five feet deep and the mounds over a foot above ground.
They prefer moist to damp ground, so the nests can frequently be found on the banks of a river, on the edge of a pond or on a well-watered lawn.
The nests are established by one or more queens and can very rapidly mature to thousands of ants.
If you have fire ants in your house or garden, you will almost certainly want to get rid of them.
This is not so hard, but if you do not destroy every nest, then one of two surviving queens can produce a new nest of thousands of ants in about a month.
There are loads of poisons to eradicate ants on the market, and if you want to use an almost guaranteed chemical ant killer, pick one of those.
Otherwise you may want to try one of the following household remedies.
Nematodes are tiny insects that live in moist ground.
They eat other insects including ants.
You can purchase nematodes in a garden centre or online.
Combine them with rain, not tap water, because chlorine will kill them, then pour this water into the colony.
The nematodes will have wiped out the ants within about two weeks.
This is a wholly green method of killing fire ants.
Some people swear by club soda.
Pour a bottle of club soda into the nest, the gas that the soda produces is alleged to kill the queen and the reproductive ants.
Soapy water is also said to kill ants.
Use the same bowl of soapy washing up water and tip it over the colony, the soap is believed to kill them on the spot.
Boric acid is repellent to ants.
so you can spread it around the foundation of your house and around the anthill.
There are quite a few natural methods of getting rid of fire ants, if you want to learn more, search on the Internet.
This is because the feeling of pain after having been stung, not bitten, by one of these ants is similar to the pain received from a burn.
Most ants that produce pain in humans bite first and then spray acid into the cut, but fire ants bite in order to get a grip and then sting with the body.
The substance that they inject is an alkaloid venom which is painful to humans.
It is also an insecticide and some observers think that the nurse-worker fire ants spray this venom over the eggs to ward off infection.
Fire ants are easily distinguished by their red to copper-brown heads and dark to black bodies.
They are between two and six millimetres in length and their mandibles or jaws look like jagged garden secateurs.
Fire ants make nests in the ground and often build up big heaps of soil, although sometimes this is disguised by a fallen tree of a heap of vegetation.
The nests can be five feet deep and the mounds over a foot above ground.
They prefer moist to damp ground, so the nests can frequently be found on the banks of a river, on the edge of a pond or on a well-watered lawn.
The nests are established by one or more queens and can very rapidly mature to thousands of ants.
If you have fire ants in your house or garden, you will almost certainly want to get rid of them.
This is not so hard, but if you do not destroy every nest, then one of two surviving queens can produce a new nest of thousands of ants in about a month.
There are loads of poisons to eradicate ants on the market, and if you want to use an almost guaranteed chemical ant killer, pick one of those.
Otherwise you may want to try one of the following household remedies.
Nematodes are tiny insects that live in moist ground.
They eat other insects including ants.
You can purchase nematodes in a garden centre or online.
Combine them with rain, not tap water, because chlorine will kill them, then pour this water into the colony.
The nematodes will have wiped out the ants within about two weeks.
This is a wholly green method of killing fire ants.
Some people swear by club soda.
Pour a bottle of club soda into the nest, the gas that the soda produces is alleged to kill the queen and the reproductive ants.
Soapy water is also said to kill ants.
Use the same bowl of soapy washing up water and tip it over the colony, the soap is believed to kill them on the spot.
Boric acid is repellent to ants.
so you can spread it around the foundation of your house and around the anthill.
There are quite a few natural methods of getting rid of fire ants, if you want to learn more, search on the Internet.
