The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

So, I'm not an active ant keeper myself (mostly because my husband is phobic after being shoved into a fire ant hill as a kid) but I felt like here might be the best place to ask. Some fire ants have moved in right at my mail box, and I don't want to poison them but I want them to not be at my mail box. I'm not exactly sure where the mound is, but I'm sure I could find it pretty easily.

I honestly just want to know: Do any of you know of ways to encourage ants to move away from an area?

I've already been swarmed by these ants, and I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're fire ants. I'm in Florida too, so I know they're invasive I just hate having to kill them when beyond trying to kill my foot when I went to get the mail they've done nothing wrong. I really don't want to dump a bunch of poison everywhere, which hurts other things, and kill some amazing bugs.

(I'm even open to helping someone try and relocate them, I seriously just don't want to kill them unless I have to)

Well, the only thing I can think of is flooding them. (better ideas welcome) Many species of fire ant are used to floods, and will all come out and move. So maybe if you flood for a certain period of time?

Boiling water is an okay way to destroy fire ants, as is soapy water. Boiling soapy water could probably do a bit of damage to them.

Solenopsis invicta is a heavily invasive species is Florida. Another way could be to attempt to seal the mailbox, although this would be pretty difficult to manage.

Yeah.... The only way your getting them out of there is by killing them.

Yeah, I figure they moved to that area because we've been getting rains every day. Ugh, that's unfortunate I guess the search for one of the entrances is on. Thanks for the help ya'll

RadonMoons wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 18, 2017 8:01 am

Yeah, I figure they moved to that area because we've been getting rains every day. Ugh, that's unfortunate I guess the search for one of the entrances is on. Thanks for the help ya'll

Seal off areas where they could enter, and put Vaseline or PTFE around the mailbox near entrances, so they slip. Killing is bad, scents that they dislike might also work.