Hello, I'm the OUTDOOR PROFESSOR from DiscoveringTheOutdoors.com.
Here's your outdoor tip on escaping fire ants.
About 70 years ago, fire ants were accidently introduced to the United States from South America. The 1/8 to ¼ inch reddish brown creatures can now be found throughout the South and seem to be continually moving north in the United States. Their territorial nature exhibits an aggressive swarming behavior and they are known by their painful sting causing itching, swelling, and a scab. Their strong jaws inject formic acid into your skin destroying cells and raising postulating, slow healing sores. In some cases their bite will result in allergic reactions such as hives or anaphylaxis that may be serious enough to produce death.
It is thought that we can never completely eliminate fire ants, but we can learn to do things that make it easier for us to co-exist in the outdoors.
Here are some things you can do to escape the wrath of fire ants:
1. This is a simple and obvious approach. Avoid the ants in the outdoors. Look for mounds looking like loosened soil or sand ranging from 1-3 feet in diameter. Regardless of how tall the mound is, it can be as deep as 4 feet and contain 25,000 up to 250,000 ants. Be aware of your surrounds and watch the ground as you walk being sure to bypass their nests or areas where they are foraging.
2. Wear boots and tuck your pant legs into your socks to reduce the risk of bites. Wearing sandals or open toes shoes is asking for ants to attach your feet and climb right up your legs. If you are attacked, do not use your bare hands to brush the ants off or you will start feeling their aggressive bites on your hands also. Use gloves or some kind of cloth to knock the attackers off—they won’t give up the fight.
3. Chemicals can be used to keep populations of fire ants down, but when camping or participating in outdoor activities in a contained area, there are several less toxic approaches to keeping the ants away.
1) Pour cornmeal around the area to create a barrier to discourage the ants from your activities.
2) You can flood the mound with hot water with some non-toxic dish soap. This works best in new mounds in the cool morning and evening hours when the ants are close to the surface. It is thought that this is only about 60% effective, but will discourage ants from maintaining their mounds.
3) Your own fire ant bait can be made with borax
powder. Use
4 tsp borax
1 cup sugar or peanut butter
3 cups water
Soak cotton balls in the mix in a container with holes punched in the lid. Place it a few feet away from the mound
4) Sprinkle cinnamon around the area. There is no true research that explains why, but ants will stay away. Some think
1. Ants cannot digest the cinnamon
2. Ants are made sick by the cinnamon
3. Just plain doesn't smell good to ants
4. Physically interferes with the ants’ sense of smell/navigation
For whatever reason, cinnamon seems to keep ants away and is tolerable to humans as long as you do not inhale the powder.
5) Powder from chilies also will repel fire ants—not chili powder like you put in soup, but instead the hottest chilies such as habaneros can be dried and ground into a powder that should be dusted around the area. The capsaicin in the peppers is an irritant to the ants and will discourage them from entering your area.
Hopefully, you will try these more non-toxic methods of controlling the ants before you go to the poisonous chemical approach. Being aware of your surroundings and watching where you step is the simple key to finding yourself safe from unfriendly fire ants.
This is the OUTDOOR PROFESSOR from DiscoveringTheOutdoors.com.
References—Additional Reading
What caused this bug bite?
http://www.healthline.com/health/bug-bites
The ABC’s of Coping with Fire Ants: a fact sheet from Toxic Free NC
http://toxicfreenc.org/informed/pdfs/fireantssheet.pdf
How do you repel fire ants from a campsite?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_repel_fire_ants_from_a_campsite
Fire Ant Control in Two Easy Steps
http://www.uaex.edu/publications/pdf/FSA-7036.pdf
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