RE: (TFT) Hymenopteran Version --> Floating fire ants.

["rmorger" <rmorger@mail.ev1.net>]

--------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "rsmith" <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>
Reply-To: tft@brainiac.com
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 17:53:33 -0800

>>In July 02 we flooded extremely badly at the lake I saw mats of 
>>fire ants from quarter size to small vehicle size. It took 
several 
>>hundred ants to make a quarter size floating mat I cant begin to 
>>imagine how many it took for the large rafts. When these mats 
hit 
>>shore the ants would just swarm the shoreline. It wasn't a good 
>>idea to walk around the lake for about a week after the water 
went 
>>down.
>>
>>...
>>
>>Robert Morger
>>Boerne, TX
>>rmorger@2ev1.net
>
>	Did you say it took several hundred ants
>to make a mat the size of a quarter?  A quarter 
>dollar???

Think in terms of each biting onto the next to form a quarter 
dollar size sphere with the dead bodies in the water locked 
together in death and the living above waiting for land fall where 
they can do the beach invasion trick.

>
>	How small is a fire ant, less than one mm
>in length?
>
>	Rick
>=====

That sounds about right the majority of them are very small 1/8 
inch max (sorry don't convert to metric in my head) with the 
largest queens(breeding flights) and drones around 3/8 inch in 
length. Warriors are only slightly larger than workers but twice 
as much mass and more formic acid to pass on. They also use their 
pherenomes quite well, a great deal of them get on you before they 
start biting/stinging you. Each one injects a miniscule amount of 
formic acid through its stinger ut feels like a small coal or 
ember has landed on you burning you(hence the name) the area 
effected usually turns red and burns for several minutes or hours 
depending on how you react to them. The next day there are usually 
white blisters at each bite or at least most of them when broken 
the area itches very badly for several hours to days. They are 
detrimental to most species of ground dwelling animals mainly the 
new born they can kill calves and other large animals if enough of 
them are present at the time of birth when the animal is basically 
immobile.

In the last 15-20 years they have adapted to the life in the new 
world on this side of the border. In the late 60's early 70's 
studies were done and basically only a single queen would control 
and area of about 1/2 to 1 acre in size with transgressions by 
other mounds turning into all out warfare between the to nests / 
colonys. In the 80's researchers started to notice a trend towards 
multiple queens in the same acre or larger area working 
cooperatively they started calling them super hives or mega nests 
and other cool names like that. All I know is that the only 
effective pesticide that seemed to get rid of the little beggers 
was taken off the market in the 70's. Now we use two or three 
different granular type products to move them off of our property 
but never really get rid of them.

Robert
In Ant infested Central Texas

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