What's your favorite fire ant extinguisher? Or fav way of dealing with any other savage, stinging kind of ant?

My favorite way is a blow torch. Unfortunately, Sonny won't let me play with it anymore.

So instead I use dry molasses in the flower pots, DE & Pyrethrum with a little orange oil on/in the garden mounds AND (if I remember and have time) beneficial nematodes at least once a year in the spring.

For ants in the kitchen, I mix up a bit of mint jelly and a little boric acid powder, and put it on the outside windowsill of the kitchen window. Takes care of the problem pretty fast. If they don't take the bait, then they are in the protein phase rather than the sugar phase, so I use peanut butter instead of jelly. If I don't have time to mess with them, I mix both peanut butter and jelly with the boric acid.

For ants outside...well, I usually try to ignore them. I don't walk outside barefoot anymore so usually don't step in hidden mounds sans shoes. If there is a spot of ants somewhere that I know about on my usual hand-watering route, I'll flood them everytime I water. Generally they take the hint and move away. Its too dry here for the beneficial nematodes to work. Maybe if I had a sprinkler system, I could keep the ground wet enough, but not when I have to lug hoses around when I water.

Gail, I can't believe the dry molasses works for you. That has never done anything to the ants around my place so far as I can tell. Even Malcolm's fire ant killer doesn't seem to faze them. Although I did especially enjoy the exploding bottles when it was first put on the market. Nothing quite like liquid manure and orange oil all over the pantry shelf!! When I mop, I use the Orange TKO, and always empty the bucket on an ant hill. Don't know whether it does any good, but it sure makes them mad!

Carolyn, I'm with you on Malcolm's fire ant killer. Never did anything for me either. The DE & pyrethrum always works better. Carolyn, are using the TKO on ceramic tile or vinyl? I've afraid to add it in on ceramic tile cleaning. Am I being paranoid? Also, the molasses didn't work in the yard for me as well as DE & pyrethrum BUT in the containers, the molasses has done the trick. I've gotten to where I mix it in with the potting soil when I do a new container, along with a little DE.

Gail, I use TKO (actually the other one that is cheaper) for everything. Tile, vinyl, laundry, walls, wallpaper, truck inside and out.... everything.

I tried the dry molasses at the old farm, and couldn't tell that it did a thing. Never added it to potting soil though.

Hello, I use Malcolm's Fire ant killer and it has always WORKED for me???I mix it up according to the label and then I take a stick and stur-up the mound and then pour it in and on the mound(this is not suggested on the label, but it gives me a lot of satisfaction)....In a few days the mound is gone.......

Gail, you and Larry both crave to fight fire with fire and who can resist stirring um up with a stick, huh David? ! Larry loves to wind a hollow metal pole down into the mound and pour gasoline into it. No, I won't let him light it ;-) Even using just gas without the fire is not healthy or wise - plus it leaves a burned spot in the lawn and drives me nuts. And then the survivors just pack up and reestablish elsewhere in the garden.

I'm convinced that this year's additional bene nematodes have greatly decreased our colonies. The last two hot dry summers seemed to decrease the bene's numbers here, so I reinnoculated the beds and lawn in spring and again during that freak rainy June - and can see great improvements for it.

Another defense for drier ground such as Caro's large spread is a granular product that sterilizes the ants. As well as eating it, the fire ants stash any excess in the tunnels, so that the next generation also becomes sterile - end of cycle. Tadaaa,,, the nest is empty in 2 weeks. There was concern that this sterilizing product named 'Logic' would destroy all the varieties of ants in the area. After using it on mounds in the lawn during the last two dry summers, that doesn't seem to be the case here. We have at least 3 other kinds of ants this year. This might be because I only used Logic on fire ant hills, instead of the entire yard - which to me, now seems preferable to neme defense.

About boric acid for kitchen ants, the peanut butter for their protein cycle is news to me! Why not just go ahead and make them a BPJ!?!? I've always just used the b acid straight up - if they walk thru it, they ingest it anyway when cleaning their feet. But hey, if they gotta go, why not let um go happy, eating a peanut butter jelly sandwich! Why do we not treat fire ant mounds with it too ??? Would it not blow them away too??? If boric acid gets water bugs (really nice name for VERY large roaches that live in tall trees, but want to come indoors for the airconditioning), surely it would work on the fire ants??? Gail??? Anyone???

Maybe because the powder can blow away. Checked my bait yesterday, and the ants were still feasting and dying. I always use too much boric acid. Howard says just use a little so they will take back to nest, but I'm always afraid of not using enough and just "feeding" them. I seriously needed to use the boric acid for roaches the past couple of months, but ended up making those bait flour balls with it. I was worried about the dogs and cats ingesting it if they walked through it and licked their feet. Anyway, to preserve the animals, I probably put the bait in the only places in the house without roaches, because I couldn't tell any difference in # (there were thousands). Reverted to killing them one at a time....beneath my shoe! Now the crickets are starting and I've heard that you don't have both crickets and roaches at the same time. So, crickets I can take care of. I put a line of DE outside the doors. When the crickets walk through it, they die by the time they crawl under the door. And I don't worry about the animals eating DE since I put it in their food anyway.