Hairy, crazy ants invade from Texas to Miss. (not a joke)

[ensho]

http://news.yahoo.com/hairy-crazy-ants-invade-texas-miss-150823360.html


It sounds like a horror movie: Biting ants invade by the millions. A camper's metal walls bulge from the pressure of ants nesting behind them. A circle of poison stops them for only a day, and then a fresh horde shows up, bringing babies. Stand in the yard, and in seconds ants cover your shoes.

-snip-

And they're on the move in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. In Texas, they've invaded homes and industrial complexes, urban areas and rural areas. They travel in cargo containers, hay bales, potted plants, motorcycles and moving vans. They overwhelm beehives — one Texas beekeeper was losing 100 a year in 2009. They short out industrial equipment.

If one gets electrocuted, its death releases a chemical cue to attack a threat to the colony, said Roger Gold, an entomology professor at Texas A&M.

-snip-

A computer system controlling pipeline valves shorted out twice in about 35 days, but monthly treatments there now keep the bugs at bay, said exterminator Tom Rasberry, who found the first Texas specimens of the species in the Houston area in 2002.

-snip-
-------------------------

one sort of goodish thing about them is: The hairy crazy ants do wipe out one pest — fire ants — but that's cold comfort.

"I prefer fire ants to these," MacGown said. "I can avoid a fire ant colony."

[Roland99]

1. Someone call Tom Delay!

[Jamastiene]

2. That is true. You can avoid fire ants.

I'd rather keep the fire ants who seem to know it's better for them to stay in the yard, rather than ants who come in and take over the house.

I'm NOT looking forward to when those hairy crazy ants finally get to NC. I know they will in time. We've had enough trouble with tiny black ants that you only see in the thousands when you do see them...usually AFTER they have made it into your house and you wake up to them crawling all over everything. It's like a damn plague or something to wake up to that. This summer has been terrible.

[nc4bo]

4. We've had 2 invasions by the tiny ones. Are they sugar ants?

I think we'll have to treat our foundation next year as I've spotted fireants trying to nest between open spaces in our brickwork. Poured some bleach inthe cracks and so far so good. They travel up from the mound through the gaps and onto the porch. Of course the real big dirt mound is located at the base of the bricks.

Can't stand those things and have been making a boric acid/sugar mix to take down some of their numbers. Works pretty good but you have to be persistent and patient.

Also, I could have sworn I've seen these crazy, darting ants in NC before. Their behavior is pretty unmistakable, I've seen no other ant walk around like they're schizophrenic like these do.

[Jamastiene]

5. I'm not sure what kind they are, but yes, the ants I am talking about are tiny and you

never see less than hundreds when you do see them. They are black and smaller than a piss ant. We've had tons of them at different times come in this summer. I've never seen this many trying to get in like this. My aunt says that means we will have an early winter,a long winter, or a bad winter, but NC hardly ever has a really bad winter, except maybe in the mountains. I hope if we do get a lot of winter weather this winter, it is snow and not ice, sleet and freezing rain.

For fire ants, I just leave them in the yard. If they get in my small path to the mailbox or to the car, I just avoid them. If I see them trying to get too close to the house, I treat with spray for them and they move. I think that is all any of the stuff that claims to kill fire ants really does. It makes them move...and makes them angry. Also, don't stand too close to the majority of them when treating them. They know it's you causing the inconvenience (that's all it really is for them, lol) in their day. They are super smart little ants. No wonder they can survive just about anything.

[onpatrol98]

3. Please no....

Between ants and mosquitoes, I have had enough pests for a lifetime.