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 sensation of pain after having been stung, not bitten, by one of these ants is similar to the pain suffered from a burn.

Most ants that cause pain to humans bite first and then spray acid into the cut, but fire ants bite in order to get a hold and then sting with the abdomen. The substance that they inject is an alkaloid venom which is agonizing to humans.

It is also an insecticide and some observers think that the nurse-worker fire ants spray this venom over the eggs to prevent infection. Fire ants are readily 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 serrated garden secateurs.

Fire ants make nests in the ground and often build up large heaps of soil, although sometimes this is concealed 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 colonies can frequently be found on the banks of a river, on the edge of a pond or on a well-watered lawn. The colonies are founded by one or more queens and can very rapidly mature to thousands of ants.

If you have fire ants in your home or garden, you will almost certainly want to get rid of them. This is not so hard, but if you do not annihilate every nest, then one of two surviving queens can produce a new colony of thousands of ants in about a month. There are plenty of poisons to eradicate ants on the market, and if you want to try an almost guaranteed chemical ant killer, choose one of those.

Otherwise you may want to try one of the following household treatments.

Nematodes are very small insects that live in damp soil. They eat other insects including ants. You can purchase nematodes in a garden centre or on line. Combine them with rain, not tap water, because chlorine will kill them, then pour this water into the nest. The nematodes will have wiped out the ants within about two weeks. This is a wholly green way of killing fire ants.

Some people swear by club soda. Pour a bottle of club soda into the colony, the gas that the soda produces is alleged to kill the queen and the reproductive ants.

Soapy water is also supposed to kill ants. Use the same bowl of soapy washing up water and tip it into 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 base of your house and around the nest.

There are quite a few organic methods of getting rid of fire ants, if you want to find out more, look on the Internet.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on quite a few topics, but is currently concerned with how to kill fire ants. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Killing Carpenter Ants.

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