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I have 2 huge fire ant hills in my yard. I am scared that my girls will get into them so I scanned the internet for eco-friendly ways to get rid of them. Today I boiled no less than 5 pots of water and poured them into the ant hills. Then I sprinkled cornmeal all around the mound because I read that they will eat this stuff and it'l puff up in their bellies and kill them.

All the while my girls were asking me what I was doing. I showed them on the internet that the thousands of little white balls that were washing up from the mounds were larvae (chills and yuck!) and I explained that they were taking their babies elsewhere so they could be safe. We looked at an ants development and now I really understand these little creatures. I still want them OUT OF MY YARD!

I'll let ya'll know if my methods work! Do ya'll have any other ideas for getting rid of these pests if my efforts don't work?

I don't have any advice for you, but it does sound like a GREAT science lesson! I can't wait to hear how it works...

I was soooo excited last year when we bought our house because I saw no fire ants. Well, I guess they had just poisoned them to death b/c I have several that have just popped up. Ughhh! I need a pet and child friendly way to poison/kill them and get them out of my yard. I also have black ants all over. But I have had tons of experience dealing with them. I put boric acid in some meat baby food jars and poke holes in the top. They go for it and die. Nothing else seems to kill the suckers besides spray which is dangerous for animals and kids and non eco-friendly. It takes a while to work though.

I tried the cornmeal with black ants and they just ignored it. So I would be very interested to know if it works on fire ants.

Let us know if your experiment works...

So far nothing! The ants seem to be re-building. UGH! I will try the boric acid and see if that drives them out. Did you just set one jar near the mound or a few?

"Thousands of little white balls"

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! I just got chills.

I hadn't heard of cornmeal before, but I've heard of using grits, sprinkling it over the mound. I haven't tried it, though.

Just don't use what my dad used to: Gasoline! Another instance that makes me wonder how we survived childhood.

Yeah - those funny stories from youth about surviving. I remember Roy (my step dad) setting our yard on fire each spring to kill ants and enrich soil and then one year we caught both neighors yards on fire too. I remember playing badmitton in that crunchy black mess!

P.S. - I still have ants (