Intersting Pest....

Will try to get a few pictures later, but listen to this!

Day before yesterday, I was planting my oats at the neighbors field. On the last pass (right next to the edge of the field) I seeded past a VERY big red ant mound. They are probably about 3 or 4 feet from the edge of the field, so I was pretty close.

Well, yesterday afternoon on my way home, I decided to swing by and make sure that the filed wasn't covered in Canadian Geese or Deer, and low an behold, here are my little white oat seeds crawling across the ground towards the ant nest!

After further inception, there were LOTS of ants carrying my oats back to the nest!!!

Withing about a 10 foot circle of the nest, the ground was covered with red ants! They were actually digging into the ground, retrieving the oat, and then carrying it back!!!

I have decided to take a small coffee can of spare oat seed down there and sprinkle it all around the nest, that should in "theory" keep them busy for a week or so while the other oats sprout!!!

Crazy huh?!?! Bryce

i'd hit that mound with some sevin dust and get rid of them varmints!!

Be thankful you live far enough north to still have red ants. Down south the red ants have just about all been wiped out by fire ants!

Horrible creatures that viciously attack anything (usually your foot) that steps in and sinks in their numerous mounds!

They don't belong here, came up from South America in the ballast (dirt and rocks) of cargo ships. They have also decreased the ability of any animal that nests on the ground to reproduce.

Poisoning the mound just spreads them! They have spare queens in waiting, disturb the mound, they pop up three more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CaTbyXjAw0

That's interesting, something you won't see in Iowa. We do have striped gophers that dig up young corn plants to get to the seed that is still attached to the roots. Poison peanuts takes care of them but I usually don't know about it till a big bare spot shows up on the edge of the field.

So right about the fire ants. several years ago, my wife took a road trip to texas. while @ a fuel stop, she took small dog out to do his business, couldn't figure out why he kept barking & jumping back in her arms, until---felt them crawling on her foot/slip-ons. she said they all seemed to bite @ exactly the same time when she stomped her foot. very painful, & the bites poison up for days. She said dog never got bit as far as she could tell]

I've done that in the house before, head them off to see where in heck they were coming or going from. Every year, February or March, they would show up, get on the kitchen counter or something, small pie tin appropriately placed with something in it, thats where they head to. Every so often if you looked closely at the line of them, there is like a supervisor or something, a stationary ant checking everything as it goes by! LOL !

Before you would know it, they would be gone. I finally noticed in the basement, there was a line of em on foundation wall, but could never connect the path to upstairs. I had some all black carpenter ants somewhere in here too, no wet wood or likely places, set some bait and it took a while to work, but have seen neither since. Never found where they nested, all dry, they need moist wood. The ones in the lines were small brown ants, like you find small holes with tiny grains of sand around the yard, they close em up before rain. You'll find lots of tiny mounds of these, but no giant mounds or heavy populations in any single mound. The only mound type ants here are the next size down from black carpenter ants, they are all black too, hit that with a mower it may stop a lawn tractor, but its funny because there are never any rocks in the mound, all clean fines, so it never tears anything up, just a big thud, dust plume and lots of ants coming out ! Whats even stranger, no woodpeckers or other predators disturb these mounds, they take years to grow too eventually becoming raised and thick with grass. I've never seen ants take to seed in a field before, thats a new one LOL !

Sprinkle chili powder on/around the mound.The workers carry it in on their feet and it kills the queen.Try it,it works!

I think I would sprinkle andro instead.

Did you use treated seed? If you did, you shouldn't have to worry about that hill next year. The seed is treated with a poison, for various reasons(that being one). Ants have large areas just for storing food, "baiting" them to keep them out will not help.

Friend of mine told me once he found a big ant mound in his "back 40" took his Oliver out there and stopped with one wheel on the hill. He then held that brake and turned tight for a few minutes, switching once in a while, till it was wore down. Then took the truck back there and burned rubber on the hill as well so the mound became a pit.

Ever see this
Cast a ant nest

Fire ants suck. I don't think we will ever get rid of them. Best thing I have found is Orthene. Stinks like all get out but it kills the ant hill dead within a couple of days.
However, I have read about the crazy ants; some people say they are worse than fire ants.