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Photo Credit: Daniel Overcash

Pesticides that come in a drench formula, such as this one, must be mixed with water prior to application.

What not to do

Let’s first address three home remedy treatments that do not work when it comes to controlling fire ants: The first involves placing grits on top of the mounds. The theory behind this method is that the ants will eat and digest the grits, the grits will expand and then eventually cause the ant to swell and explode. (Similar to the myth that rice is deadly to birds.) Alas, the grits treatment has proved to do no more than provide a food source for the ants.

The second home remedy is to pour gasoline on the mound. Not only does this not eliminate the fire ant problem, it can cause damage to the environment – and is illegal in most areas! Fire ants can live down to 3 feet in the ground. When gasoline is poured on their mound, the ants will sense that something’s wrong, retreat out of their home and just build a new mound 3-4 feet away. In other words, you’ll only succeed in relocating the fire ants and contaminating your lawn.

The third ineffective, yet popular, home remedy is to pour hot water into the mound to kill the ants. While this is much safer than pouring gasoline, the hot water has little chance of coming in contact with all of the fire ants, given the pests’ ability to retreat deeper into their intricately tunneled mound. Another downfall of this method (besides not killing the ants) is that you’ll kill all the vegetation that the hot water comes in contact with. Unless you want a polka-dotted lawn, you should really consider using one of the following effective treatment methods instead.