This Week In the Garden
Killing Fire Ants

This week in the garden Chris Cooper shows how to use ant bait to eliminate a fire ant mound. The bait should be spread around the mound. The worker ants will find the bait and take it back to the mound. The bait will either sterilize the queen –no new ants- or kill her. This is the first step of the “Texas Two-Step” for eliminating fire ants. This step will eliminate the mound but you have to wait for all the ants to die which could take up to two months. If you want to get rid of the mound more quickly, go back after several weeks and kill the remaining ants with a contact insecticide.

Related Resources:
Imported Fire Ants
Managing Fire Ants in Vegetable Gardens