I think it was this past weekend on the radio, Malcolm Beck mentioned that his compost tea made with bat guano was killing fire ants. The theory is that bat guano is not really bat guano but rather the dung from the billions of dung beetles that digest the bat guano. The body parts of the beetles are known to be in the "bat guano," and so apparently are the microbes that digest chitin, the exoskeleton of the beetles. When these particular microbes multiply in the tea (from the bat guano ingredients), they want to dissolve all the chitin they can find - say for example, that chitin found in the exoskeleton of the fire ants.

Another source of the chitin dissolving microbes is shrimp shells or any insects you collect in a trap.

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David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum

A commercially available version of the fire ant formula is available called Anti Fuego. I have had good luck with it. Trying a new bait called Come and Get It. Green Mama's swears by it. Will let you know progress.

Has anybody heard of some commercial stuff called EXXANT? One of our local stores carries it and they told me it has turpentine and ammonioa in it and supposed to be organic. That did not sound organic to me and just needed and wanted some other folks advice.

The EXXANT site actually offered the MSDS. So here is the MSDS for EXXANT.

http://fire-ant-killer.com/msdsheet.html

It does contain:

SDW (Steamed Distilled Wood) Turpentine CAS# 8006-64-2
Ammonia CAS# 7664-41-7

It has also been listed as non-toxic and non-poisonous. This doesn't mean I trust it by any means.

That was my concern, I just was wondering if anyone had used it. I would be afraid of destroying everything you had been working toward using the stuff.

I am impressed. 48 hours after application, the mounds that I baited are gone. I put the stuff out in the evening at dusk and it has seemed to work great. You may want to try it and see how it works for you.

What was in the bait?

Green Light is supposed to come out with an organic bait this week or next.

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David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum

It is a byproduct of rum fermentation. I bought it at Green Mama's in North Richland Hills and they have evidently had success with it as well. I am not sure exactly how it works, but it doesn't take a great deal. The jug treats 12k sq. ft. and isn't much bigger than a half gallon.

Maybe I've been napping, but I don't think I've seen anyone address the issue of the fire ant killer Antifuego (orange oil concoction) seriously disturbing (killing) earthworms. Is this a known problem or are my earthworms wimps?

I use the Antifuego knowing that it kills the turf and everything in its path down through the mound. I use it sparingly when I do use it. I have always liked the effectivness, but the yard takes about a month to recover. I mainly use the Antifuego for ants around the compost pile. I don't care if I kill stuff around there and the bait doesn't work with all of the food around. I never can keep my compost hot enough to keep the ants out.

That is why I like this new bait. It seems to be effective and it doesn't have the side effects.

I'm going to give that bait a try. Totally not happy about burned turf spots in my yard.

~Dave

You might try more soap and less d-limonene in the drench mix to see if that works as well with less plant burn. Soap & detergent usually aren't great ingredients to add to the soil, but the orange oil has surfactants of some type in it anyway. If the mound is large, it could have multiple queens at multiple locations within it, which could make it harder to kill the colony with a drench. My apologies if these points already were made elsewhere.

When I tried the wet cornmeal flood on some mounds, they went inactive fairly fast, but new mounds arose near the treated mounds within a fairly short time. Whether they were extensions of the original colonies, the same colonies merely relocated, or new infestations, I don't know and there isn't an easy way to tell in such an uncontrolled experiment. I have a couple of theories, right or wrong, about the cereal grain treatments. First is the ants' well-known tendency to prefer protein foods during the brood season. During that time, I wonder how much grits, cornmeal, etc. the ants would ingest, which leads me to wonder whether there is a seasonality to the effectiveness of the grain treatments. That idea supposes that any control comes from the ingestion of those products, which brings up the second theory.

It is well known that many/all types of ants manage the flora and fauna in their underground environs to keep their houses in order. I have wondered if the grain treatments (and maybe molasses and compost tea) generate a microbial bloom that overwhelms the living conditions and incites the colony to move. (If this requires the introduction of more grits, cornmeal, etc. into the mound than they would carry into the mound from a moderate surface application, then maybe this theory fails.) If the colony structure is not collapsed too much, it would be more aerobic than most ordinary soils and might support a short-term bloom. Maybe the microbial activity from the meal consumes oxygen or generates enough CO2 to offend the ants. I don't think I'd go so far as to say that such a bloom causes disease in the ants, but I don't know that. My cornmeal trial used wet cornmeal and its juice, and I wondered at the time if it had an effect similar to that of wet flour on grasshoppers. Maybe some drowned in the goo, I don't know. There are lots of interesting ideas to test in a controlled setting.

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In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they aren't -- lament of the synthetic lifestyle.

I treated for grubs with BN, first application on Sunday, April 4th and the second application Monday, April 12th.
Can I treat my annoying ant mounds with organge oil now or will it kill the BN?

Thanks!

You can go ahead and treat them and not worry about the effect that the drenches will have on your BN.

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In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they aren't -- lament of the synthetic lifestyle.

Sleeper -
The product you are referring to as a byproduct of rum fermentation is most likely a spinosad product. I checked the history on this a while back so I'm going from memory here. Spinosad is a pathogen that was found in an abandoned rum disterillery in the Caribbean and then cultured and developed by a biologist and found to be useful in insecticides. Check the active ingredients listing and see if that's it. As a fire ant killer it works well but it is very toxic to bees so using it around flowering plants is a no-no for all us bee lovers. It comes in spray forms too but I wouldn't ever use them because of that particular fear. The good thing is that it dies off pretty much after it does its job, like the Bt products, so it does what you need it to do without wiping out all the benficials.

check it out.
Kathe