Fire Ants: Effective Treatment Options (NAPSA)—Fire ants infest more than 300 million acres in the southern United States each year, including an estimated 11.7 million gardens and households. For those who live in infested areas, the telltale moundsin the yard are a familiar and unwelcomesight. Not only can fire ants ruin garden plants and play havoc with electrical wiring, their bites are extremely painful and can even be deadly. Fortunately, there are simple and effective methods for controlling these “ant-agonists.” According to experts at the Texas Agricultural Extension Service at Texas A&M University, researchers recommend treating fire ants in the spring and fall with a fire ant bait, such as AMDRO. The bait is spread over the entire yard and picked up by worker ants as food. It is then taken back to the mound whereit is consumed by the ants including the queen. Once the queen eats the bait, she dies within a few days, thus eliminating additional ege production and destroying the mound. Experts caution that treating just the visible mounds is not enough to control the fire ants. That’s because many mounds are hidden in the lawn and garden and have not yet been built up above the ground. These hidden mounds are connected to the colony through a series of underground tunnels. “Treating just the mounds that you see is not going to control the problem,” states Jeff Avison, AMDRO’s Vice President of Marketing. “That is why homeowners have to broadcast a bait product over the entire yard. This lets the ants do the work by carrying AMDROdeepinto both visible and hidden mounds. Within about a week, the queen will be dead and the colony destroyed.” When using AMDRO, consumers should scatter the bait thinly throughout the entire yard Spreading bait across the yard is considered the most effective wayof eliminating fire ants. so it rests in the grass and ornamental garden areas for worker ants to harvest. Fire ant experts also recom- mendthe following steps for best results with baits such as AMDRO: Since fire ant bait works as a “food,” using fresh bait from a recently opened container is most effective. *Use the proper amounts of bait: 1 to 1% poundsper acre (1 pound treats a large yard three times). *For best results, apply AMDROafter the rain, but when no additional rain is forecast for at least 24 hours. Do not apply to standing water or on a soaking wet ground. Apply bait in early morning or early evening, when worker ants are mostlikely to forage for food. *Apply bait with a hand-held spreader, and broadcast over the entire yard. *If possible, team with your neighbors to coordinate applications—thefire ants will have no place to go if the entire neighborhood broadcasts at the same time. *Bait can be applied anytime from spring to fall. Reapply bait whenever fire ants or their mounds appear. To learn more about AMDRO fire ant bait, visit the Web site at www.amdro.com.
