Fire ants suddenly appear when there's lots of moisture such as after a significant amount of rain that made the ground and soil very wet.
Fire ants also appear and thrive in warm temperatures and also seek uninterrupted sunlight and avoid dark and shady areas.
A fire ants worst enemies are Phorid flies which lay eggs in the heads of live fire ants.
As the eggs hatch they incapacitate the ant and the larvae then consume the fire ants body for food.
Fire ants hate black pepper and cayenne pepper the most.
You can sprinkle some cayenne pepper or black pepper around areas where fire ants hang around and it will deter the fire ants.
The smells that fire ants hate are lavender, thyme, cayenne, peppermint oil, black pepper and citrus fruits.
To get rid of and kill fire ants you should use diatomaceous earth which kills the fire ants that come into contact with it.
Fire ant beds look like soil mounds which can be as large as 18 cm tall and 61 cm in width and can also be dome shaped.
Fire ants are also the least active during the hottest periods of day and also avoid darkness and shade and are much more likely to appear in open fields and lawns instead of in forests.
You can tell if you have fire ants in your yard by looking fire ant trails and looking for a nest or mound of fire ants.
To find a fire ant nest look around your lawn, in foot paths, driveways, fence lines, garden beds, near water sources, in or around water meter pits and gas meters and look for a trail and mound of soil.
Fire ants homes look like visible soil mounds that are often in sunny locations and can be 18 cm tall and 61 cm wide.
The fire ants mounts can also be domed shaped.
Fire ants are hard to get rid of as the colonies of fire ants are very large and also can extend underground for a great distance.
To eliminate a fire ant colony, the queen fire ant must be killed; in multi-queen colonies, all queens must be killed.
Even if the queen fire ant is killed, surviving fire ants may inhabit the mound or make a new mound until they die off.
A fire ant queen has a large head and large thorax which makes the queen fire ant stand out from the normal worker ants.
A queen fire ant also normally has wings at some point in their lives.
Fire ants are reddish, brown in color and often have darker and red-brown to black brown colored abdomens.
Sizes of fire ants range from 1/16 to 1/4 inch long and the fire ants have narrow, pinched waists with 2 prominent nodes right before their abdomen.
Fire ants are actually several species of ants in the genus Solenopsis, which includes over 200 species.
Solenopsis are stinging ants, and most of their common names reflect this, for example, ginger ants and tropical fire ants.
Once fire ants get hold of you, fire ants can sting you several times and these are not just an ordinary sting.
They can inject toxic alkaloid venom into your body, which is known as solenopsin.
It's a chemical that produces pain, itching, swelling, and redness of the skin.
Fire ants are found in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and sporadically in Maryland.
Fire ants have also been accidentally introduced to other countries.
In some cases, imported fire ants are considered to be beneficial because they prey upon other arthropod pests.
In urban areas, fire ants prey on flea larvae, chinch bugs, cockroach eggs, ticks and other pests.
In many infested areas, the problems outweigh the benefits and controlling fire ants is highly desirable.