Wow, Donna you sure wanted to make sure of those ants!

Gotta say, though, I'd never ever pour gasoline on the ground anywhere I wanted to grow anything. Even after burning it off, you'd be likely to leave residue that could be nasty.

As you say, you sure can't do that in the middle of a lawn or garden, or anywhere near a structure. If we even light a fire to burn garden waste the fire department shows up here.

Seriously, the baits are the way to go. They target the ants only, kill the queen and the whole nest, and don't leave a toxic residue behind. This isn't just me sayin', our wonderful entomologist at the Extension office (and any entomologist you ask, for that matter) will tell you the same.

I don't like fire ants, but there are so many of them that any attempt at extermination, no matter how fun, seems futile to me. Live and let live.

Heavens Pork, if we don't do something, they are gonna eat us up! I simply cannot stand the little suckers! But seriously Elaine, you are right. I haven't done that in years, and the baits I guess, are the way to go, although Ken's treatment sounded good too. I only did the gas but outs at the edges of the yard. But yeah, I meant business. I wanted NO survivors, and usually there were none.

Baits are great but compared to the Orthene, slow to see success. The ultimate solution would be to have everyone around me do a full-yard baiting (by commercial pest-control folks). Neither of my two next-door neighbors do much about their fire ant infestations, so once I clear my yard/landscape/garden of them (I only have a handful of mounds each year) I just get infestations from adjacent property mounds. Fighting fire ants is simply ongoing skirmishes and I know, realistically, I will never win that war.

Maybe you should just sneak over when they are gone and treat them for them, lol. at least that would help keep yours at bay, lol then they might begin to enjoy the hill free lawn and decide to do something about the next ones that crop up???

You don't know my neighbors, at least one of them. Talk about "frugal". He waters his outside plants with a pot. He has a hose and I once asked him why he takes pot-after-pot-after pot of water from the house to do his watering. He said using a hose would waste water! His front and side yard is Bermuda grass, and the sod was paid for by his son. I don't know why his son didn't sod the back yard as well.

My neighbor moved here from a town in the Mississipi Delta and he still has the old home there. He has made countless trips (200 mile round-trip) back to that house and brought back thousands of sprigs of grass to plant in his back yard. The problem is that it is St. Augustine! I and the neighbor on the other side of him have Bermuda. Now, every summer, I take a flat-edge shovel and cut a line down our property line and remove all the St. Augustine grass on my side of that (cut) line. What a pain! I won't even talk about the weeds in his yard. Fire ants in his yard is the least of my problems.

Haha, bless your heart. Looks like it would have been SO much cheaper to have bought Bermuda sod and cut it into sprigs than all those trips, gee, what a dummy. Some ppl are so slow, lol. Oh well. He could also cut sprigs from his existing Bermuda??

Not only "cheap" but stubborn as well. He is an electrical engineer and certainly is smarter than most of us. The mind often works in mysterious ways I guess.

Yep, that it does my friend! Lol. I feel your pain. Have a Motger in law that is so cheap, when she takes a dollar out of her wallet, George squints, he hasn't seen daylight in so long it hurts his eyes we have always ragged her that if they were selling light bulbs 4 for a dollar, she would only buy 50 cents worth. And I am NOT kidding. really works my nerves. She is about to let the house fall in around her, we just get so mad at her, but no amount of fussing will budge her. Joe's Dad has been gone 16 years and you would think the woman didn't have two buckles to rub together. There is a place in the bathroom where the floor needs repairing, she will not even talk about it. I could just scream. But what do you do??? Joe can no longer get under her floor to work on it, it's an old house built almost on the ground. Someone young and slim will have to do it. He is neither anymore, lol.

OK, Donna, you have me. What's a Motger in law? Oh wait, I know, I know! Mother-in-law!

Oh my! Sorry!!!!

Leftwood said:In the colder parts of the country, only the imported Asian Lady bugs bite. The native ones don't.

I know you have Asian Lady bugs in Texas that bite, but I don't know if your native ones do.

Wow, I had never heard of the imported lady bugs that bite. I have never had what I am guessing is our native lady bugs bite me. I think if I did I would think it was a bad omen.(Lady bugs are considered good luck) Not that I believe in luck or omens, but I sure would wonder why in the heck I got bit

I am thinking with the leaf cutter ants that they allow a fungus to grow from the leaf scraps to feed their young and that is why the antifungal cinnamon would work with them. I am not certain but I don't think the fire ants have the same feeding system for their young. They prefer live deer and small children to be dragged down live for food. Nasty buggers. I use an organic practice here, but I am loosing the battle big time. I will probably go nuclear on them this year with a bait. I use the small indoor ones sometimes for the kitchen and I think I will go stick one in a pot right now that I noticed the other day a mound growing from the top. I will report back if it works.

If it doesn't work, don't give up Audrey. Specific ants take certain baits, and their tastes can change through the seasons. Some take fatty baits, some take protein bait and some take sweet bait. If the ants don't take one type, try another.

Good to know Elaine Thanks for the heads up on that.