Unfortunately, many bait products are not legally registered for use in gardens. They may be used in adjacent lawns, but cannot be used within gardens that include food crops. Although beneficial nematodes might be used to get fire ants out of gardens by disturbing them, the same effect can be obtained at no extra cost by pouring hot water onto the mounds or by mechanical disturbance. Those who decide to apply beneficial nematodes to get fire ants out of their gardens should do so when conditions are most favorable for the largest percentage of the nematodes reaching the largest number of ants. Avoid applications when the soil is hot, to minimize death of nematodes by heat and desiccation, and to catch the greatest number of ants nearer the surface where the nematodes can reach them.
Most fire ants are deep below ground during the hottest part of a summer day.
Better times to apply the nematodes would be early in the morning or about 12 hours after a rainfall during the summer, or during the cooler weather of other seasons. At this time, no biological control agent identified by scientists to be effective against imported fire ants is available for sale to the public. However, a fungus found by University of Florida scientists to significantly reduce fire ant populations is now being prepared for commercial use and should be available to consumers sometime in 1998 or 1999. In the meantime, Floridians who wish to reduce fire ant problems will have to continue to rely on the practices and products that have been proven helpful, following label directions carefully to give them the best chance of success.