Fire ants are among the most troublesome types of insects to deal with on your property. Many property owners make the mistake of oversimplifying the extermination process by simply pouring boiling water onto mounds. While this method will kill the ants around sixty percent of the time, there are more effective methods of controlling fire ant mounds on your Dallas landscape. Generally, there is a two-step method that is heavily associated with high success rates of permanent mound elimination.
STEP 1: WIDESPREAD BAIT = WIDESPREAD SUCCESS
It is imperative that you follow each step thoroughly, and in doing so you will ensure fire ant population reduction and elimination. However, this first step alone will get rid of the majority of fire ants plaguing your Dallas landscape. Insecticide treatment will serve as your primary defense against fire ants in this step whether it is granular or spray based. The type of insecticide purchased will determine how quickly the ants are killed.
The typical duration of insecticides is about eight weeks, and we recommend you apply them twice a year. Granular insecticides can be distributed via fertilizer spreaders. Attention to detail and instruction is critical in this step because using too much insecticide runs the risk of damaging the plants in the targeted areas, or may lead to lake and sediment contamination by storm water runoff.
STEP 2: POUND THE MOUND
Although step one will drastically control the fire ant population, this step will seal the deal by eliminating the ants from your Dallas landscape completely. This step requires the purchase of granular bait. Worker ants will mistake the bait for food and transport it down into their colonies. This will expose millions of ants to the bait, which acts as a poison; but more importantly the bait will be served to the queen, who is responsible for the repopulation of the ants. No queen. No ants.
These are the core steps in the fight for your property’s liberation from fire ants. It is worth noting that there are a variety of baits and insecticides; that being said we recommend you do the necessary research on what types of products you will need, which will vary based on the number of fire ant mounds on your property, the type of landscape setup you have, and your budget. Contact Keane Landscaping today for more information about reducing fire ant population on your property.
