And if the jelly doesn't taste good, you can always use it for repelling ants .. . .

Goodbye fire ants, hello sugar ants

I have to agree with Ken 100%. We have fire ants and our little Portuguese Podengo, Phoebe, got bit in between the pads on her foot. She was miserable. We tried both Amdro and Orthene. The Amdro mounds showed no effect for a week and the ones we treated seemed to just move over a bit and form another mound. The Orthene killed them right away with no sign of them and we don't use anything else now. We treat the front, then the back, so we can walk Phoebe in one or the other at a time.

I know several people that swear by Amdro. I think that Amdro changed their formula since those first few years that it was on the market. I never saw much if any results when using it. Orthene is my choice. It works every time!

I still use Amdro & it works great for me.

There you go. Ann, do you know whether their Fire Ant formula has changed over the last 10-15 years?

Orthene worked immediately, well pretty fast. I mixed with water, didn't have to flush the pots out. The pots (and plants ) are inside and there is no odor from the Orthene. Sure didn't want fire ants in the house, they hurt.

Reine, I have never had fire ants in my plants, knock-on-wood, but I sometimes get sugar ants. For some reason sugar ants just love my large, mounted staghorn ferns. I have used both powdered Orthene or Orthene mixed with water, and as soon as I apply it, those ants start packing their bags. By the next day, there is not a single ant to be found.

drdawg said:There you go. Ann, do you know whether their Fire Ant formula has changed over the last 10-15 years?

I have no idea. I only know Amdro has always worked great for me ~~~ from the 1st jug of it I got up until present time. I like the Amdro too because it doesn't kill other critters. I am one of those who is against toxic chemicals. I wouldn't even use Amdro if the danged fire ants weren't well, FIRE ants!

Amdro can go stale or rancid, and then the ants won't take it back to the nest. It's best to store it indoors in cool conditions so this doesn't happen, and buy fresh supplies when you find a new colony. You can sniff it to tell if it is still fresh.

But a good bait - either a sweet bait or a protein/fat based bait like Amdro - is still the best solution over just killing the nest with something like Orthene. If some ants survive because they got a low dose, or if eggs hatch after you've treated a nest with straight poison, the ants will be increasingly resistant to it. That doesn't happen with bait, as it is ingested by the whole colony eventually and they all die. Even hatchlings find the bait still in the nest and eat it, so it gets them all.

With a poison, they can also move and form two or more nests where there was only one originally. This is ok for something like moving them out of pots so you can bring the pots in, but doesn't really do the job as well long term out in the garden.

Here's the (way too long) article that we distribute to folks asking about fire ant control from our local Master Gardener Plant Clinic. Scroll down about 2/3 of the page to the heading "Management" and note where it says that baits are slower acting but more effective. Every time I read this I think they should also have noted that you use a lot less chemical with a bait solution than a drench or powder application, and most of it is metabolized by the ants, too.

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/crea...

I know what you mean. I hate using pesticides and herbicides. All my neighbors call me the "Crazy Gardener". I am always out in the yard, pulling weeds up. My front yard is weed-free and I have never used a drop of weed-killer aka herbicide. I am kind of like Don Quixote of La Mancha. Weeds are my windmills. Fire ants are an entirely different story though.

I am also a Master Gardener and I prefer to stay with what works for me. Everyone has their own "solution" in controlling fire ants, though no one (anywhere)has been successful eradicating them. I have yet to see a resistance to Orthene.

We're starting to see less colonies of fire ants here, as they released one of the parasitic wasps a few years ago. Two of the release sites are just blocks from my house, so I must admit I rarely if ever see a mound. See the last part of the article above on "Biological Controls".

It will be a grand day of celebration for gardeners when/if we finally do get rid of the last fire ant.

Hopefully those wasps won't be a problem in the future.

It's a tiny parasitic fly actually, (they were calling them wasps when they first introduced them) that only targets the fire ants I think. They decapitate the ants in the larval stage.

When armadillos get into a fire ant nest, that nest is finished - forever. Nice if you could get the 'dillos to only get in the fire ant mounds and not dig a bunch of other stuff up! In defense of fire ants, the tick population here has nearly disappeared since the arrival of fire ants. When a neighboring hunter killed a deer last year it was clear of ticks. I really, really hate ticks. I also think the cotton farmers have found fire ants to be a really good control for the boll weevil. I have found, unfortunately, that the fire ants do like containers. I guess it makes for a nice fortress against armadillos . Things in nature can be pretty intelligent about things sometimes. I do wonder with the evidence on ticks and boll weevils what else they may be consuming that might be detrimental to the plants I have growing. Sadly, I see no sign they do anything to grasshoppers.

If anyone has had less than stellar results with Amdro, they might be using it incorrectly. I have found their instructions to be very accurate & if you do it wrong you will not see good results. You do NOT sprinkle it ON the nest you sprinkle it *around* the nest. I never get closer than 1" to the outer edge of their nest, most often 2" out from the outer edge. If you put it on their nest, they move. You need to do it in the morning. If you do it late in the day & the night dew falls upon the granules, then they won't finish taking it into the nest & you will find yourself with a still active nest you will have to re-treat.

I have tried other products claiming to kill fire ant nests and been sorely disappointed with them not to mention they are a pita to use. Amdro is super easy to use and it does the job.

Even though this is a fire ant thread, i update occasionally on leafcutter ants. I read online that leafcutter ants will eat dry grits, and it swells up and they die. Even though they supposedly will eat only fungus, i thought i would try after they ate EVERY leaf off my gardena cuttings. It takes 48 hours and today is the 24 hour mark. They are busily picking up grits and carrying it back to their nests. They have stopped eating my plants!!! Hey, im willing to buy thęm grits, even if it doesnt kill them, if they will leave my plants alone. Adding grits to shopping list.

No kidding?! That's very interesting.