Fire Ants in the Raised Beds

We have a raised bed in the backyard in which we plant watermelons, cantaloupes, butternut squash, and spaghetti squash.  It is raised, hence, the level of the soil is higher than the surrounding area which is good, but in times of rain like we just experienced, fire ants look for higher locales on which to relocate.  Doggonit if they didn't discover our raised beds!

When we got ready to plant in the bed this weekend, there was a big, thriving ant mound.  Oh, how I hate fire ants.  They bite/sting.  They also build huge mounds in the pasture and make it very difficult to push the chicken tractors.  Earlier this week we posted about undertaker bees - those bees charged with removing the dead bees from the colony.  If you'll notice in the photo below, you'll see that there are numerous little brown things on top of the ant mound.  Those are fire ants that are deader than a doornail.  Ant colonies, like bee colonies, must have undertaker ants to dispose of the deceased.,

Dead Ants

I like to see dead fire ants.  But let's rewind.  How did we kill the ants?  We don't like using pesticides in our food plots.  Well, we cooked 'em!  Russ and I boiled water and poured the boiling water over the mound.

Cooking their goose!

The boiling water was slowly poured over the ant pile and the bubbling liquid flowed down into the tunnels and all throughout the chambers, making a nice ant "broth".

Fire in the hole!

This method is very effective for killing ants.  However, you have to do it three or four times to kill the whole colony.  As long as you see the dead ants on top, there are still live "undertaker ants" around to move them out of the colony.  So we applied the first pot of boiling water in the morning and the second in the afternoon, killing numerous ants.

By the third application, the few remaining live ants had gotten the message that constructing their home in our raised bed was a fatal mistake.  Below you see that there is no more movement in the colony.  The white dots you see on top of the ground are ant eggs, COOKED ant eggs, that is.

Eggs over easy

While this is an optimal remedy for a few ant hills on your property, it is just not practical for killing the numerous ant colonies all over the pasture.  I wish it was. We'll use it for ant hills that pop up around our house and in garden areas to try to keep them at bay.

We went ahead and planted the melons and squash and I'll inspect the vacated remains of the ant colony for signs of life and reapply boiling water as needed. Dead ants.  Ant-free zone in which to plant our crops.  No pesticides.  Now we're cookin'!