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A fire
ant bait has three parts: a food source, an active ingredient,
and a carrying material. Foraging fire ant workers see the bait
particle as food and carry it back to the nest. Inside the nest,
the bait, including the active ingredient is passed from ant to
ant, through the colony until it eventually reaches the queen.
Fire ant baits will not work unless the worker
ants pick them up. Therefore, it is important to put the fire ant
bait out when fire ant workers are most actively searching for food
(between 70 and 90 degrees F).
The food
source is what attracts the fire ants and causes them to carry a
bait particle back to the colony. The food source OCFAA uses is
soybean oil. Bait must be fresh, if the oil becomes rancid,
the fire ants will not pick it up.
We use two products with different active
ingredients. Distance® contains an insect
growth regulator (IGR). An IGR does not kill the adult worker ants or the
queen, it will
stop the queen from laying eggs and prevent the immature fire ants
from developing. As the older ants die naturally, they are
not replaced, the colony ultimately dies completely.
The other material we use is called Siege Pro®.
Siege Pro® is a metabolic inhibitor (MI), which
blocks metabolism. Ants forage and eat, but are unable to
derive nourishment from the food they eat. Eventually the
colony will starve to death.
Both materials
are slow acting but once consumed by the ants the effect is long
lasting. Neither material is as toxic as table salt, and unless
you have pet ants are completely harmless to humans and our pets.
The application rate
for both materials is very low. A typical backyard with 1,000
square feet of planted area can be treated with one ounce of material
every 90 days. This material also breaks down quickly in sunlight
and water, so if the fire ants do not pick it up it soon becomes
harmless even to hem. This is why we are careful to treat
only when workers are actively foraging.
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