Fire ants are an invasive nuisance in NC. How to keep them at bay and treat bites, stings
Fire ants are a nasty nuisance in the Southeast, with painful and irritating bites and stings that can lead to serious health issues in rare cases.
The red imported fire ant is an invasive species in the US, per the federal Department of Agriculture. And they’re found in 74 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, the NC State Extension says, including Mecklenburg County.
Here’s what to know about fire ants and how to keep them from ruining your summer:
How to identify fire ants
Fire ants have a “dull red body coloration, which ranges from reddish brown to reddish black,” the pest control company Orkin explains, and they have a stinger.
They can “vary in size” from 1/16 of an inch to almost a quarter inch, Texas A&M University’s Imported Fire Ant Research and Management Project notes.
The ants tend to build their mounds in sunny areas, per Orkin, and “can be as large as 18 cm tall and 61 cm wide.”
What attracts fire ants in your NC house or yard?
Fire ants “avoid darkness and shade,” Orkin notes, which means they’re “more likely to appear in open fields and lawns than in forests.”
If a mound in your yard goes undisturbed, the colony can multiply and even “send additional queens to begin new mounds nearby,” the company adds.
“These aggressive insects feed primarily on living insects and dead animals,” Orkin says. “Upon infiltrating a home, however, they are drawn to fats and sweet foods.”
And “laundry piles are convenient places that present lots of tunnels for the ants,” Texas A&M notes, as the ants “may be attracted to moisture or food residue or oils on soiled clothing.”
Are fire ants dangerous?
Fire ants can bite and sting humans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains.
“They are aggressive when stinging and inject venom, which causes a burning sensation,” the agency says. “Red bumps form at the sting, and within a day or t,wo they become white fluid-filled pustules.”
People should “not disturb or stand on or near ant mounds” in order to avoid getting bitten or stung, the CDC recommends.
And people “with a history of severe allergic reactions to insect bites or stings should consider carrying an epinephrine auto-injector (EpiPen) and should wear a medical identification bracelet or necklace stating their allergy.”
If you are bitten by a fire ant, you should brush the ant off quickly and consider taking an antihistamine, per the CDC. If the sting “causes severe chest pain, nausea, severe sweating, loss of breath, serious swelling, or slurred speech,” you should seek emergency medical care.
How to get rid of fire ants
“Eradicating fire ants is not practical at this time,” the NC State Extension says, but there are steps that can be taken to manage infestations.
Texas A&M recommends using a bait product to help get control of a fire ant problem in your yard.
“An ideal time to apply bait-formulated fire ant insecticides is from late August through October to allow the baits to reduce fire ant populations over the winter,” the group says. “Many bait products are somewhat slow-acting. By applying them in late summer or early fall, ant mound numbers will already be suppressed by early spring.”
You can also use the “Two-Step Method,” the university adds, which involves using a bait product once or twice a year and “treating unwanted active nuisance mounds at any time between these broadcast treatments using an individual mound treatment such as a dust, granule, bait, drench insecticide or home remedy such as the use of very hot water as a drench.”
You can also contact a professional pest removal service to help take care of ant problems.
“Remember, no method is 100% effective all the time, though some come close, and no method is permanent,” Texas A&M says. “The ants will re-invade, with new colonies probably appearing after the next ran, and certainly within a year.”
