Fire Ants and fire ant info for the Beaufort, SC and Hilton Head Island areas.

Mobile AL is green dot, fire ants spread from there.

The Red Imported Fire Ant, was introduced into Mobile, Alabama in the mid 1930's from
South American cargo ships. A fire ant colony was in the ships soil used as ballast.
Either fire ants were on the cargo
being unloaded or some were discharged into the water with the ballast soil. Since then,
the fire ant has invaded most of the Southeast and is slowly expanding west and north.
(Green dot is where the fire ant was introduced)

Fire ants live in colonies called mounds. It all begins with the "Nuptial" flight. Winged male fire ants take to the sky and form large masses. The winged females then fly into the swarm and mating occurs. Shortly thereafter, the males die and the fertile new "Queens" begin their search for the perfect nest area. Once found, she discards her now useless wings and begins to make a tunnel. She then lays about a dozen eggs, which hatch in 7 to 10 days. She will feed and care for them for another week, at which time they will begin the task of building the mound. They will also care and feed their mother "queen" and she will continue to produce more eggs. Once the cycle has progressed, the queen can lay between 800 to 1000 eggs per day. The established mound really begins to grow rapidly from this point.
Dirt and sand taken from building the tunnels are deposited into a mound, sometimes reaching several feet in height. Most ants have one main tunnel leading into their nest. Not so with the fire ant. They can have hundreds of tunnel openings spreading over a very large area. Fire ants even have tunnels leading straight down to the water table. This is one reason why many fire ant mounds are so difficult to destroy. A mature colony can have between 100,000 to 500,000 fire ants and many queens within the mound. After a rainy period, the worker ants prepare new openings for the winged breeder males, who will then fly out to form another mass.
The females then follow and another nuptial flight occurs. These new queens begin their journey and new colonies are formed. The queen ant can live over 7 years. Nuptial flights occur usually in spring and fall, just after a rainy period. Although fire ants can not survive extreme cold, the mild southern winter has little effect on them. When it gets too cold, they simply move deeper within their nest.

The fire ant is a VERY aggressive ant. It will attack anything, no matter what its size,
if it disturbs the mound or their feeding area. The attacks are carried out by many ants,
sometimes numbering in the hundreds or more. The classic attack occurs when the fire ant mound is disturbed by accident. The unaware victim won't even notice the attack...
until many ants have positioned themselves on the victims skin. Then... All at once
the ants begin to bite with their powerful jaws, arching their backs and stabbing the victim with a stinger located in its rear abdomen.
Each ant can sting many times and each sting releases a toxin that is responsible for a
burning pain, hence their name "fire ant". A few stings are really not much of a problem,
as not enough toxin is released to really do any real harm. But... hundreds of ants, each stinging 8 or 9 times can be painful enough to make any victim look from then on...
"where thy foot lands"!!! After being stung, the wound forms a red welt, about twice the size of a normal freckle. The next day, a white pustule (blister) forms. The most common symptom, other than the burning pain when the sting happens, is a mild itch. The itch usually lasts no more than a few days. If the pustule is popped or broken open, an infection and scaring can occur. It is best to just leave it alone and let nature do its work. Most of the time, no real damage is done other than a few new four-letter words learned and...
a renewed and long lasting respect for these midget sized warriors.

As with bee stings... Fire Ant Stings Can become Fatal...

There are times, although rare, fire ant attacks can become an emergency.
If there are many stings or the victim is allergic to the toxin, serious problems
may occur. Anaphylactic shock can follow rapidly requiring emergency treatment.

The symptoms to watch for are...
severe headache, severe nausea, profuse sweating and most importantly
shortness of breath or chest pain.
IF any of these happen, especially the last two, a call to 911 is indicated... FAST!
The victim could lapse into a coma or quit breathing and require life saving drugs
which are carried on all the EMS ambulances.
The most vulnerable people in this category are...
children, the elderly and people allergic to bee stings.

Remember... this situation is VERY RARE, but...
any victim should be watched for an hour or two... just in case.

Fire ant prevention is very difficult at best. Although there are a lot of poisons available,
most are used improperly. The biggest mistake is disturbing the mound. This causes the ants to move great distances from their mound. The poison does not reach the queen because not enough is brought into the mound. Another factor is the queen only eats what the workers have eaten first. Poison kills them instead of the queen. There are tests being done at this time using a fly that kills fire ants. If this works, the fly will be released throughout the area. More will be added about this as it becomes available.
Any poisons used should clearly state "will control Red Imported Fire Ants"...
or their scientific name "Solenopsis Invicta Buren".