Fire Ants Are Invading Montgomery, Alabama Lawns!

Podcast Transcript:

Michael Wienecke 0:23

Hey, and thanks for listening to the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. I’m Michael, and we’ve got Travis here, and we are going to be talking about the fire stinging insect that is in your front and backyard that creates unsightly mounds and just causes lots of problems. Travis, what are we going to talk about today?

Travis McGowin 0:47

Well, fire ants, just to put it blatantly for everyone, fire ants is the scourge of most people’s lawns, sometimes the scourge of the structure that you know you live in. They they range everywhere from, you know, East Coast to West Coast, and you know, as far up as, say, Virginia and down towards Florida. So I mean, they’re very wide area that they live in, and that that means that, you know, a large amount of people you know across the globe are affected by these insects.

Michael Wienecke 1:22

100% you know, they’ve come in from boxes over centuries, from other countries. I would say just, just like any other pests that we have in the United States, it came from Asia.

Travis McGowin 1:35

Yeah. So actually, I was reading about that and the they believe that. I think the red imported fire ant was actually originally from Brazil,

Michael Wienecke 1:45

Brazil. Okay, I know, I know other ants have come in from from Asian areas and all the shipping containers and all that. So another fun fact about fire ants, they are called fire ants because when they bite, it is like fire. It feels like fire.

Travis McGowin 2:02

Yeah. You know, instantly, when you get when you get hit by one it’s, it’s not some delayed thing, it’s, it’s instant pain. And you know, think it’s estimated that one to 2% of the population in the United States is actually allergic to fire ants, which, when you think about the population of the United States, 1 to 2% that’s a pretty decent sized

Michael Wienecke 2:24

chunk. So I’m glad you brought that up. So a couple months ago, we were gardening in the backyard, and I turn around and see my two year old rolling around in the in the grass. Well, he was covered in fire ants from about feet to waist, so ripped his clothes off, hosed him down. He was probably stung. It’s funny, I was about to say bit, and that’s something else we’re going to talk about too. But he was stung about, I would say, 20 something times monitored. Monitored him for any kind of, you know, anaphylaxis or anything like that. Did not have any issues, thankfully. But yeah, they can definitely be a safety concern.

Travis McGowin 2:56

My brother has a similar story. When he was around the same age, he actually, he actually sat on top of a fire ant mound accidentally. And to this day, even as an adult, you know, in his late 30s, he is still allergic to him. If he gets stung by a fire ant, he swells up in the side of the sting. And so, yeah, that that one encounter as a child still lingers with him, even as an adult today.

Michael Wienecke 3:26

Well, my son loves ants now. He tries to find him wherever he can. He hasn’t been stung again, so we’ll see how that goes. But I I certainly hope he’s not in the same boat as your brother. So let’s talk about what to look for like, What? What? What are fire ants compared to other ants color wise. So you’re looking for more of a yellowish, reddish, brownish color. And of course, the mounds. So the where they nest is going to be those unsightly mounds like we talked about. You know, I’ve got one right now popping up in my driveway between the cracks and crevices of the driveway, leaf debris, rock debris, anything that can kind of give them a good harborage area.

Travis McGowin 4:05

And they will shelter up under things too. And here’s the crazy part. You know, people may not realize just how big of a problem and how invasive these insects actually are, but to put it into perspective, those properties that have a significant problem can actually have upwards of 30 to 100 mounds per acre. So that’s that’s a significant amount of ants, when you consider that the average colony size for a decent sized ant colony, and remember, 30 to 100 mounds, so potential colonies per acre and a colony size of 80 to 250,000per colony of ants.

Michael Wienecke 4:54

And that’s, that’s one queen colony.

Travis McGowin 4:56

Right, Exactly. So, I mean, when you, when you really think. About it, if you had it on the high end of 250,000 ants, and let’s just say you had 80 mounds, you’re talking about 20 million ants in one acre of property.

Michael Wienecke 5:13

That’s that’s a lot of ants.

Travis McGowin 5:14

Just, just to put it into perspective, right?

Michael Wienecke 5:17

Well, that’s why I try to let people know if you have one fire ant bed. Typically, there’s going to be more, whether it’s on your property or your neighbor’s property. But again, that’s a lot of ants. And the crazy thing too, is, is that that queen is producing upwards of 1500 ants per day.

Travis McGowin 5:34

Right. That’s a that’s a significant amount of population ballooning in a very short amount of time.

Michael Wienecke 5:41

That’s right. So let’s talk about some other we talked about the safety aspect of it. Let’s just talk about the yard. So I know, you know, I’ve got Bermuda grass in the front yard, and I’ve had, we actually just did a fire ant treatment at my house, and starting to see results within about three days. But they will ruin your grass,

Travis McGowin 5:59

Right, especially if you you know those people who really take a lot of time and effort on their lawns. You know that you you may have a fertilization or a weed and feed treatment that you do, or that you have someone come out and do on a regular basis. And so, you know you pay to have a nice lawn. You want to enjoy that lawn in your outdoor areas, and then you have something that comes and just constructs this big, huge mound of, you know, dirt or sand, and then it, of course, leaves a dead spot in your yard, you know. And then other other problems with them too. I mean, they can, they can also destroy vegetation, if you have, you know, plants and different things, they can also be detrimental to that too. And I think it’s estimated that fire ants have an actual economic impact of I want to say it was like $6 billion per year from from damage and treatment costs. Total was like $6 billion.

Michael Wienecke 6:58

Well, I mean, they have the ability to chew on wires. I mean, if you know, if they want to, you know electrical wires, that’s that’s another one of the biggest routes we see as far as a building, is, you know that AC line going into the building, or those electrical lines, and they just follow that path to reach least resistance, and then they’re in your home or your building.

Travis McGowin 7:17

Well, not only that, too. I had a customer that, not long ago, called us in reference to fire ants, because they ended up having a mound that destroyed their air conditioner unit. They had to have things replaced inside. And what happened was, when these ants get inside of these air units and these electrical components of different like I said, not even just air units, but different products. You know, they may contact, some sort of electrical contact, which inflicts a shock on the ant, and that causes the ant to release a like an alarm pheromone or an attack pheromone, and then it just brings more ants. So then you have this huge cluster of ants that are attacking this electrical component that shocks the, you know, the ants in the first place, and they can just cause extreme damage, you know, even up to the point where you might have to replace components of a unit, or a whole unit, which can cost thousands and thousands of dollars for a homeowner.

Michael Wienecke 8:14

I’m glad you brought that up, because, you know, same with the, you know, calling each other with the pheromones they do. The same with stinging. So that’s why, in that story with my son, he got stung 20 times, because when one ant stung him, they all released a chemical response to sting at the same time,

Travis McGowin 8:29

Right, so, I mean, you know, with allergic reactions, a lot of people may not realize this. They say, Oh, well, I’ve been stung by ants, stung by a wasp, stung by whatever X amount of times throughout my life, I’ve never had a problem, but you can be stung by something 99 times, you know, just as an example, and never have a reaction. But that next time, that 100th time, may be the time when your body no longer has the ability to withstand that. You know that foreign body from a sting anymore, and then you know that can lead to an allergic reaction

Michael Wienecke 9:01

100%. Well, we always talk about on this podcast as far as helping people and things that they can do themselves, but I personally would not recommend doing a fire ant treatment yourself. I’ve heard so many customers tell me that they get that, you know, white powdery stuff from the big box store, and two weeks later, you know, they’ve moved over into the left hand side of the yard, where they were in the right hand side of the yard.

Travis McGowin 9:24

Absolutely. You know, DIY is great. I DIY a lot of different things, fire ants, or just ants in general, can be something that are that are difficult to just tackle on your own. Because if ants know that something is a killer to them, or something is a danger to them, then they just may up and relocate. So you know, some of these products that I’ve said it 1000 times on this podcast and to many other my customers, is that just because something says it can be used to kill an insect doesn’t mean it should be used to kill an insect. So, you know, whereas, if you. Some sort of drench on a mound with something that says it kills ants, and then all of a sudden, you know, a couple days later, here’s this new mound popping up, you know, X amount of distance away from where you treated the other one, because they’ve just moved. So there’s a lot more to it than just dumping on something on top of a mound or on a group of ants that says it kills them. You know, we use various methods from baits to broadcast treatments over lawns. I mean, you know, one of our most popular treatments, as you know, and I do it on my yard as well, is our fire ant treatment that broadcasts across the entire lawn that lasts for up to a year. And it’s amazing. I was just walking through my yard the other day, you know, back this spring, we had an ant. We had fire ant mounds popping up all over the place. And I’m, you know, my kids running around in the yard, just like yours do. So I treated and I literally was just looking around the other day, and I realized, it dawned on me, there, there, there’s no, there’s not a single mound anywhere in my yard anymore. And that’s amazing.

Michael Wienecke 11:03

That’s a huge bonus, huge bonus. Like I said, we just treated three days ago. And it’s funny, because you, you typically, I think it’s 14 days is when you start to see something, but when you still, when you’re seeing dead ant, you know, ant mounds in your yard in three days, that’s that’s pretty impressive. And then having that one year warranty that we cover, you know, if there’s an ant bed, we’ll come take care of it, retreat, whatever we need to do to get that do to get that problem solved.

Travis McGowin 11:24

Absolutely. And that’s why, typically, what happens is, is, when we have a customer that goes with us for a lawn fire and treatment, you normally get that call back the next year and ask, Hey, when are you coming back to do it again? I got a customer that they really are fearful that their grandbabies, that you know, come and stay with them from out of town, are going to get out there in the yard and play, and they’ve got a really nice, plush lawn. So, you know, sometimes those mounds may not peek over the top of the grass. You may not see them, and inadvertently, you’ll step in them or stand in them before you realize that you’re doing that, and they don’t want their grandbabies bitten so or excuse me, stung. So they, they, we call, yeah, I know, right. They call every single year. I think, I think this year was year three or four that we’ve done that for them, and they religiously love it.

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