How to Identify & Treat Fire Ants
Fire Ants in North Texas are a common lawn pest that can threaten your family, pets and lawn. Their painful bites can be especially harmful to people who are allergic to them, and they have been known to harm and even kill livestock, pets and wildlife. Often, fire ants build their colonies in electrical equipment, like air conditioners and outlet boxes. The ants will chew on the cables and actually move soil into the equipment, potentially causing severe damage. If you’re seeing signs of an infestation, it’s important to act quickly. Green Top Lawn Care’s professional turf insect control services can help eliminate fire ants and prevent them from coming back.
Fire ants can harm your turf when they build their colonies there. If you’ve found their large mounds in your lawn, you know how frustrating and difficult this situation can be. Fire ants are quite efficient when it comes to mound-building. Aside from the potential dangers, these mounds are also an aesthetic nightmare. In severe infestations they’ve been known to make as many as 300 mounds in a one-acre section.
Identifying Fire Ants in Your North Texas Lawn
Fire ants look similar to many helpful, native ant species. Worker fire ants typically have shiny black abdomens with the rest of their body being a dark reddish brown. Most are between 1/16 and ¼ inch long. Knowing which kind of ant is infesting your yard will go a long way towards helping you solve the problem. Misidentifying an ant species could lead to the wrong treatment approach, which is why expert identification is key.
Depending on moisture levels, fire ants will build their mounds on the surface or below ground. So you may think you’ve eliminated them when you no longer see mounds, but the ants may be underground or have moved to a new location.
How to Treat Fire Ants Effectively
Many try to eliminate fire ants from their yard by treating mounds individually. In our experience, we find that this approach is not as effective as using a broadcast method that treats a larger area. When the problem is particularly severe, we may recommend broadcasting a fire ant bait twice a year, then following up with individual mound treatments for those stubborn colonies.
Based on scientific evidence and experience, multiple applications of fire ant bait are often the most effective fire ant treatment methods. Fire ants mistake the bait for food, bringing it back to their colony, where the queen ingests it. This poison effectively wipes out the colony.
When applied in the spring and fall, this approach is both cost-effective and respectful of the environment. Customers often see the effects of a bait application within just a few days. Typically, following up with an individual mound treatment is unnecessary, as the bait proves to be quite effective. This method may be part of a lawn care professional’s strategy to reduce common lawn pest problems before they become widespread.
Trust the Experts for Fire Ant Treatment
If you’re struggling with a fire ant infestation in your North Texas lawn, contact the experts at Green Top Lawn Care for professional insect control treatments. Call (817) 684-4044 or request a free quote today.
