Fire ants are not your typical ants. They are considered as one of the most aggressive of ant species. Hence, fire ant extermination in Kitchener, as in any other place, is considered to be very challenging yet rewarding job to take.
In case that you accidentally stepped on their mound of earth and you didn’t move away fast, chances are high these ants will catch up on you and definitely will attack and sting you. And if that happens, God knows it will really hurt. They also have a voracious appetite and will eat and consume almost everything. From plants to animals, rats, mice, snake, name it, they will launch an attack and consume it. Hence, they call for a treatment strategy that is far different from the rest of the other ant species. If you are keen on learning something more about fire ants and how you could possibly extinguish them for good, you should familiarize yourself with their mounds. Fire ants are among the ant species that are making use of earth mounds as their nest. If you will walk up to one, make sure that you take extra caution not to disrupt the mound otherwise you will agitate the ants harboring inside and they will eventually come out and attack anything that comes their way. The reason why you need to find their mound is because you can place your ant bait there. Once these fire ants found the bait, they will take it back to their colony and queen. Eventually, part of the bait will be consumed by the colony and later on one by one they will all die. In a matter of 2-3 days, the entire colony would have been wiped out for good and your fire ant problem is solved. Alternatively, you can opt to drench the entire colony with an ant treatment solution. This kind of strategy though may require you to have more of the ant treatment solution than what you first anticipated. And while doing so, you have to be very alert not to be attacked by fire ants or else you will regret it a hundred times that you didn’t. Learning how to avoid being attacked by fire ants and how to keep them at a safe distance from you is part of your learning process on how to treat such kind of infestation. Drenching their mound with a high-impacting ant treatment solution is an effective way to extinguishing these unwanted critters. This should work because it is a time-tested measure and is yielding good results all the time. Another option to handling a fire ant mound is to try to use a broadcast spray. However, this is not as high impacting as drenching the mound because you may not be able to reach deep into their nest to get to the fire ant queen. After the treatment has been done and completed, the surviving ants can just opt to go somewhere else to start another colony instead. And if that new colony happens to be still situated on your property, that means to say that you did not annihilate their population but you caused them instead to spread even more and occupy larger areas. While drenching the mound remains to be highly effective when it comes to eliminating fire ants for good, you still can’t undermine the fact that drenching their mound with a high impacting ant treatment solution will extinguish a significant number of the ant population. Fire Ant Behavior, Diet, and Habit Fire ants, as earlier mentioned, are among the ant species that build earth mounds which serve as their nests. Their mounds usually come in 61 cm in diameter and about 18cm high. A large-sized fire ant colony could have a minimum of 250,000 worker ants. Again, fire ants are very aggressive ant species that no intruding animal to their colony would go unharmed by their stings. Fire ants are classified as omnivorous critters because they can eat meat and they can also survive on eating plants. They are also known to consume greasy foods and those that have sugar content in them. Fire ants are known to eat insects such as grasshoppers, beetles and all. Animals, large and small, intruding to their nest are also at risk of being consumed by them such as raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, mice and much more. As for the plant sources of food, this would include seeds and grains. They also consume dead animals, regardless if that particular died from their collective stinging or not. When it comes to their larvae, adult fire ants are going to feed them a liquid diet until such time that they reach their third larvae stage. Fire ant larvae will have to reach the fourth and final stage before their digestive systems would be complete and let them eat solid food on theirs. They will then participate in the food hunting work of the adult ants. System of Reproduction Fire ants are observed to have a very fast development, from eggs to being an adult ant as it only takes them about 30 days to complete this stage of their development. However, once they have reached the peak of their existence being adult fire ants they can only live for just a short while. Worker fire ants are able to last for up to 180 days only while their queens may live from 2 to 6 years. Telltale Signs of Fire Ant Infestation Similar to termites and many other ant species, one of the most obvious indications that you have a fire ant infestation going in on your property is the presence of worker ants and swarmer ants. If you have seen them somewhere in your backyard or anywhere in your property, it would be best to keep your distance from them and seek professional help if you think that you can’t employ a DIY as suggested above. Sandy earthy mounds anywhere in your backyard are also another indication that there are fire ants harboring in that very spot where you found them. These mounds of sand, upon closer look, will give you the impression that they find grains of sand, indicate that deep down that very spot are the fire ants themselves shaping up and carving custom caverns for the colony. Other Relevant Information on Fire Ants Warm and sunny weather conditions are favorable to most insects and are to fire ants, too. You will usually see them building their sandy mounds in the dry fields, and they seem to veer away from shaded spots or areas like the woods. Ant colonies usually contain several hundred thousand ants and a queen. Fire ants, when attacking a prey, will make use of their mandibles to hold it on a grip and then will use a stinger in order to inject his venom. To people who had prior experience to fire ant sting, they would vouch that fire ant sting is excruciatingly painful. The pain is so intense that it can’t be compared to any other ant stings. But to some people who have weaker immune systems, fire ant stings can prove to be fatal and all. If you witness some being stung by a fire ant and they are experiencing nausea, excessive itching or sweating, I suggest that you reach out to a nearby doctor and seek medical help as quickly as possible. Things would become even worse the moment that the patient started to have palpitations because coming next after that would be an increased heart beat rate. The fire ant sting contains alkaloid venom, which can cause irritation to human skin often will lead to red bumps and white pustules. Eventually, this kind of skin irritation will lead to scarring. The sting might be accompanied by a sensation of “intense burning” or “stinging”, hence the name ‘fire ants” was coined. And if these critters attack their prey, even humans, they always do so in large numbers. Thus, multiple stings can be inflicted on you if you accidentally tripped over their mound of earth. Therefore, you really need to be extra careful in their presence because one sudden wrong move can mean disaster for you. You’d be sorry if you don’t take extra caution and care, especially if you are outdoors. In order to avoid accidental insect bites or stings, make sure that you are cautious enough where you are placing your food and drinks. If you spot a mound of earth in an open field and ants surround it, be very cautious of any visible ant activity. In the event that you have fire ant activity at home, you need to contact your local pest management team so they can properly address the matter for you and eliminate the chances of you or any of your household members from being stung by fire ants. Such professionals can effectively manage whatever kind of lawn or backyard infestations that you may have. If you are looking for a dependable pest control firm offering ant extermination in Kitchener, consider reaching out to several companies first and request them to send you formal service quotations.
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