I was working in the yard pruning roses last week and I got stung by my first fire ant of the season. While I knew it was inevitable, I was hoping that it would occur a bit later in the year. But, it’s true. Fire ants have begun to yet again, dot the landscape with their mounds.
Spring time is when people see fire ants swarming. Swarming is a reproductive process that usually occurs on warm spring days after a rain event. Winged males and females leave the mound and fly into the air to mate. After mating, they fall to the ground where the males die and females break off their wings. Females then begin to search for a location to establish a new colony. They dig a small chamber in the soil, lay a few eggs and rear those young until they become mature worker ants. At that point the workers take over colony functions and the queen continues to expand the population of the colony by laying more eggs.
While searching for a new colony location , many mated fire ant queens are killed by lizards, birds, spiders, other ants, and often my shoe stomping them. The queens that survive can be managed by broadcasting fire ant bait over your entire property. New colonies are usually very small and may not have substantial mounds that you would be able to locate to treat individually. The worker ants forage for food, so they would have the opportunity to locate fire ant bait and carry back to the colony to share with others.
For more information or help with identification, contact Wizzie Brown, Texas AgriLife Extension Service Program Specialist at 512.854.9600. Check out my blog at HYPERLINK "http://www.urban-ipm.blogspot.com" www.urban-ipm.blogspot.com
Carmen Martin
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