The only good use for Fire-ants

Neogeo

Neogeo

Bronze Member
Jan 24, 2009
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Austin T.X.
Well it took me a while but I did find a use for fire-ants...(I knew there had to be one..lol)I have had this single strawberry plant for 3 years now..Every winter I put it down in the largest mound I can find...They not only keep the soil aerated,but also bring in nutrients and the best part is thier body heat keeps the roots from freezing....Plus look ay bthe Monster Cactus that the are liveing in!

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Already has fruit...!
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If you say so.

I think those are tiny wild strawberries, at least for my area. Small leaves, small berries. Looks like you have them in the shade, too. Strawberries really need sun to make nice berries.

No opinion regarding the fire ants. In Oregon I've only seen them once or twice, and they don't usually last long. Must either have something that likes to eat them here, or some fungus that attacks them. I think I'm for the fungi.<G>
 

If it was between my plants freezing or no p!ss ants, my plants would die! I saw my son fall into a mound scared me half to death he was 5 anyway by the time I got to him his arm was covered almost like it sunk into the mound. Thankful it was cold n they were real slow. For the several hundred ants on him he didnt get a single sting! I have found calves that were dropped on mounds at birth n never got the chance to stand up. BAD CRITTERS!
 

ok.....I had several quarter piece or better size last year......For a plant to make it through several hard freezes,It had to be something....Thanx for the input fellas......
 

Neogeo said:
ok.....I had several quarter piece or better size last year......For a plant to make it through several hard freezes,It had to be something....Thanx for the input fellas......
Click to expand...
We have "hard freezes" all the time here. Had one last night. Will have several more before the end of February, I'm sure. Yet Oregon produces some of the largest, most luscious strawberries anywhere. Half-dollar size commonplace, sometimes you find a single berry that fills a pint container.

Don't know why you wouldn't have them in TX too, unless it gets too hot there. We usually don't have berries until 2nd week of June at the earliest. Strawberries really seem to like our rainfall and cool coastal weather conditions.
 

Folks up North need to know that Fire Ants are bad Biz. Let them live and they will be all over you.They can kill other animals. When I was a kid back in the early 1950's they were only in the very South part of Louisiana, today they cover the state. You can't get rid of them.
 

Hay, I use to buy them for my horney toad, actually a lizard, but he is gone now. Frank
 

I never knew of anything that eats fire ants?
 

When my wife [ before we were married] lived in Alabama was walking home one evening. Somehow she tripped, fell over an embankment and landed in a hill of fire ants. If a man hadn't heard her screaming she could've died from her bites. She spent 3 days in the hospital and just about didn't make it.
I really never thought too much about fire ants one way or another until she told me what had happened to her. But, the first time we went to Florida she warned me about being very careful when walking our Bostons so they wouldn't get bitten.
Mike
 

buzzgator, Fire ants run all over a horney toad and don't even know he is there, he just sits still. He east them so fast they appear to disappear in front of him. Maybe you guys should get some horney toads to conbat the ant situation. There is no downside to the horneys. They are fun to watch while they stalk and eat the ants. I have seen them around Stanton anf Flagstaff Az. The Flagstaff variety eat crickets, while the Stanton variety eat the fire ants. Frank
 

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Yet Oregon produces some of the largest, most luscious strawberries anywhere. Half-dollar size commonplace, sometimes you find a single berry that fills a pint container.
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Do not know how it is done now, but us country kids use to pick berries on the berry farms for spending money. Should not say just country when I lived in Portland, use to ride the farm bus out to one of the Asian berry farms. Of course this was back in the early 70s.
 

I thought the only good use of fire ants was getting two pots of rolling boiling water, poke a hole in the mound and watch them come out and give them a nice boiling bath starting from the outside of the mound pouring inward? I like to watch them instantly DIE and after a while go back and see the water has soaked in the ground and look at the little pain in the you know whats lay there in a fetal postion finished done deal, NO MORE ANTS!!!!!!!
 

Brother in the Metroplex DFW sez his dogs don't get fleas/ticks anymore because the fire ants feast on them.
 

Frank, you could bring one of those Stanton Horn Toads to Louisiana and it could grow into a five hundred pounder in a couple of months. Would hope that a 500 pound horn toad from Stanton would limit their diet to fire ants.
buzzgator, if you got the little black pi$$ ants in your yard you want have fire ants or at least I don't. Never seen a black pi$$ ant eating a fire ant.
 

my best way to rid a place of fire ant involves a bit of gas poured on the mound and let to soak in for a while into the mound --then a match applied to said mound after the deep soaking allows the gas fumes to get deep into the mound frying the queen and killing the colony -- yep "fire ants" the only real way to get rid of em --- is to "fire" up the ants

one night they about killed me --- I went out to my car to fetch a detector out of my car --unknown to me they had built a huge nest besides where my car was parked --while getting the detector out of my cars back seat --they swarmed up my legs ( I was standing right in the nest)-- they never bit me until some had made it as far as my knees --then once the first one bit me they all seems to bite at once * -- I later on found out was stung over 100 times in total -- I staggered in the house shaking like a leaf in a hurricane - I had the wife give me a double dose of benedryl and rub my legs down with caldryl lotion to keep me from going into shock from all the ant stings -- ever since the its been "game on" if I spot a ant nest in my yard --its "flame on" time - burn baby burn.
 

In the 1960's I lived in CA, there were fire ant nests here and there in our lawns. We would catch some and put them in pop bottles, getting some stings along the way. Then we would drop lit fire crackers in the pop bottles. When the fire crackers went off inside the pop bottles, the ants would run around like crazy inside there.
 

Seen on tv there is one fly that when they lay there larve they put it in a fireant the ants dont eat the flys and they can kill of a mound and move on to the next one.
 

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What I call "graphing".

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