We have to use Amdro too. If there is an organic way to control imported fire ants, I haven’t discovered it yet. I read that mint repels ants and asked an older, more experienced gardener if it was true. She told me to go look in her mint bed. There was a big ant hill in the mint bed. The queen apparently had a taste for mint tea and wanted to be assured of a steady supply. I tried the grits trick too. It worked to drive them out when they took refuge in a potted plant, but made no difference I could see in the in-ground populations. A university in Texas is experimenting with the introduction of fire ants natural enemies, but, last I read, the fire ants adapted better to the cooler conditions than the creatures that controlled them in their native habitat. Nobody in this part of the country would want to garden if we couldn’t use poison on the fire ants.
My sister in Utica tells me the ants they have in New York don’t bite.
. I think even our native varieties bite. It just doesn’t hurt as much as a fire ant’s bite.
