I found out from a friend that putting coffee grounds around the base of the house or where ever ants are it will keep them away from where you do not want them. I did this a couple of years and we didn't have any trouble with ants that year. Also it makes good fertilizer for the garden, I used this for three years but each year the plants didn't produce as much, so this year I'll have to put more coffee on the ground to see if it happens again. Did anybody else try this and have the same results? Larry
nothing beats pouring between a pint and half gallon of gasoline on a fire ant hill and lighting it. I doesn't kill the mound, they come back , leaves an ugly ring in your yard, your wife will roll her eyes and walk away but if you listen real close you can hear the little buggers scream.
Years ago my father had a worm box where he kept worms between fishing trips. It had a lid top and bottom and when you wanted worms you flipped it over and the worms were right against the lid that had been on the bottom.
He used to put coffee grounds in the box for the worms to eat. We had some really plump juicy worms.
My dad did the same thing - a coffee can full of fat worms fed on coffee grounds. Unfortunately he didn't use many of the worms because he didn't have time for fishing. After he retired he moved to the lake so he could fish full time if he wanted to. It turned out that it only took 5 or 6 months of fishing full time for him to catch up on his fishing. He passed away more than a quarter of a century ago.
>>>nothing beats pouring between a pint and half gallon of gasoline on a fire ant hill and lighting it. I doesn't kill the mound, they come back , leaves an ugly ring in your yard, your wife will roll her eyes and walk away but if you listen real close you can hear the little buggers scream.
Yikes, that might be satisfying but might not be the best ant treatment for around the perimeter of Larry's house!
FWIW, when fire ants finally hit our part of the country a few years ago I did some research. While some treatments such as boiling water (and the gasoline, I assume) will wipe out the mound the warning was it won't necessarily kill the colony. Some have tunnels that extend for some distance horizontally under the ground and can regroup and rebuild in another spot.
The chemical methods do seem to work well since the ants carry the poison through the colony. The process is slower, though!
I do use the gasoline method to wipe out yellow jacket nests in the ground. The entire colony, however, is usually in a cavity just below the access hole.
