For whatever reason the ants up here in hardscrabble (Ellis County) seem to be on the decline.
People in the area always do the usual treatments of various baits and stuff to keep them in check, but every spring it was like starting over again.
Over the last two years I've noticed a big difference though. Five years ago I would treat over 20 mounds on my 1/4 acre joining lot. This spring I've had to hunt to find one. None of the properties or pastures near me look to be as infested as in the past.
It happened slowly at first, but I have noticed the same thing. I think the fire ant population started to go down sometime after 2000 (maybe they got a Y2K bug?).
What got me thinking of fire ant decline was the new critter that started up... chiggers. Bad. Real bad. Got first chigger bites of this season last week. Last year, first chigger bites were about the end of the first week of May.
The chiggers are everywhere - grass, bushes, concrete... yes, even on concrete far from grass there are chiggers. Lay down on the concrete to work under a car, and the next day, arrrgh! Putting down a carpet piece to lay on doesn't help, they get over that soon.
Never got them years ago here. Somewhere I was reading once that with a high density of fire ants, the crawling insect population goes mono-culture (or something like that), the fire ants prevent other species from taking off.
With the decline of fire ants, have been seeing a lot of Texas-type of carpenter ants, and small red food ants that like to get into kitchens. Never saw any of them before with lots of fire ants.
Sitting here with itchy scratchy oozing chigger bites all over me, and that was even through heavy applications of OFF (my blood alcohol level is zero, but my Deet level has got to be > .1 %). I want the fire ant population back up!
For the last few years, I have only been using Amdro on very select places: Mounds next to concrete, as they dig out dirt or sand underneath it, weakening it. Or on the weird places like opening a window, to be met by a mad flurry of fire ants that have made a nest inside the hollow aluminum frame of a window screen.
I used to go through pound jugs of Amdro per year, but I have been using the pound I have now, into the third year. Wow, that's a real decrease. I never realized that. I have no idea what Amdro costs per pound now.
Never thought that I would think of fire ants as a positive!