Auburn, March 27, 2002---Never before have consumers enjoyed such a wide selection of fire-ant products.

Still, for millions of them, the question remains: "Which one works best for me?"

"There are products designed to eliminate one mound at a time and others that can spread over an entire area to provide longer-term control," says Dr. Kathy Flanders, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System entomologist. "Some require a teaspoon of the product to be poured over the mound. Others might require 2 tablespoons sprinkled around the mound, and still others may be designed to be broadcast."

"Every one of these products are different and require different rates of application."

Fire-ant control products differ in cost, ranging from $15 to $200 an acre.

Two things to consider when choosing a product are the size of the area you want to treat and the time you have available to treat it, she says.

"If you have a family reunion tomorrow, you’re going to do something different than if you just want to have general overall fire-ant control," she says.

Individual mound treatments often work best in small areas with only a small number of mounds. While these products often provide effective short-term control, the ants often manage to bounce back faster than with other kinds of treatment.

"Sometimes, this is because you miss the queen," Flanders says. "The colony simply moves and you end up with new satellite colonies."

One other problem associated with mound treatments is that they cannot reach subterranean colonies that have not yet built aboveground – one reason why many people choose bait formulations instead.

"The ants are out looking for food, and they take this bait back to these nests whether you know they’re there or not," Flanders says. "With mound treatments, even if you get the queen in the colony you see, you may be missing the workers and queen in one of the colonies that don’t make a mound. When they pop up aboveground, it looks like this control didn’t last very long."

"That’s true, in a sense, because you only had partial control."

Bait formulations are most effective when you’re dealing with lots of mounds on half an acre or more. Many of these baits can be applied at the rate of a pound or 1 ½ pounds an acre and provide control for up to nine months -- at a cost of only $15 an acre.

"You put these baits out with a little hand seeder that you can buy at your local home-improvement store for only about $5 or $6, " she says. "You just broadcast this bait throughout the area according to labeling directions sometime between May and October. Then you can forget about the ants."

If these baits really are this simple and effective, why aren’t more people using them?

"One problem is that these baits don’t work overnight," Flanders says. "Some of them may take between six and 12 weeks to work."

Even so, she says, the effects of these treatments are both long lasting and highly economical.

Two different kinds of baits are available: metabolic inhibitors and insect-growth regulators. Your success in controlling fire ants will depend on which type you choose.

"The metabolic-inhibitor baits work faster – perhaps within a couple of weeks – but they don’t give you as much long-lasting control," Flanders says.

While insect-growth regulators act more slowly than metabolic inhibitors, they allow the workers to linger for much longer. This is their principal advantage, Flanders says, because allowing these workers to survive longer prevents other queens from flying in and establishing new colonies.

"The best kinds are the insect-growth regulators, because you get the biggest bang for the buck with these," Flanders says.

Even so, these products are not readily available to consumers – unfortunate, Flanders says, because they can provide between nine and 12 months of overall fire-ant control.

"You may have to visit your local farm cooperative or supply store to find these products. But the important thing to remember is that they are available to homeowners, and they are the way to go, if you can find them."

Auburn, March 27, 2002---If turning up fire ants in the yard is bad enough, finding them in the home is even worse.

This is especially true if a member of your family is allergic to fire-ant stings.

Unfortunately, the absence of fire-ant mounds in your yard is no guarantee that the ants won’t turn up sooner or later as unwanted guests in your home.

"In a lot of cases, fire ants make underground colonies," says Dr. Xing Ping Hu, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System entomologist. "Since they haven’t shown up yet above ground with a big mound, homeowners assume no ants are present."

"Truth is, you may have lots of colonies but no big mounds."

After prolonged rainfall or drought, many of these ants will begin infiltrating your home.

Fire-ant encroachments into human living spaces can often produce tragic results. Just ask Dr. Hu. On several occasions she has been called to advise nursing home staffs whose bedridden patients have endured multiple ant stings. In some cases, patients die from these attacks.

As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Many homeowners are often surprised to learn prevention often involves methods other than chemical insecticide applications.

For example, carefully policing a landscape, identifying areas that may attract ants into the dwelling, often provides a highly effective safeguard against encroachment.

As Hu has discovered, many of the problems associated with nursing homes can be traced to ornamental plants located close to the building.

Honeydew, secreted from aphids, scale insects and leafhoppers that feed off these ornamental plants, is a food source for fire ants and operates like a homing beacon to the pests.

That is why Hu recommends keeping ornamental plants as far away from the house as possible – at least a foot – and never allowing the branches to touch the sides of the dwelling.

In cases where these ornamental plants are already located too close to the home, Hu recommends spraying to control aphids, scale insects and leafhoppers.

It is important to undertake a close inspection of the outdoors, working your way around the building’s perimeter, including crawl spaces, to identify other sources of infestation.

Pay especially close attention to areas around utility boxes, heating and air conditioning units and where pipes, ducts and wires enter the house, Hu says.

The ants' entry points, such as cracks and crevices should be sealed or caulked.

Once fire ants are in a building, an insecticide should be applied to the ants and their trail. Many sprays are registered for inside use; the most common ones are pyrethroids, Hu says. If your inspection does not turn up any mounds near the home, continue working your way from the building until you find mounds.

Once these mounds are detected, you should consider which of the insecticides listed for outdoor use is best suited to your situation.