Ants

There are all kinds of ants in north Georgia.  The most notorious are fire ants, but Argentine, pavement, odorous house, carpenter, and other types are also here.  We don't have ghost ants, thankfully.  We also do not have crazy ants.

I've long had issues with both fire and non-fire ants.  Fire ants first.

Fire ants are constantly an issue, because even if a colony is eradicated, new colonies form all of the time.  I've had the best luck with bait treatments, but baiting is iffy.  The problem is that the bait usually has an oil base of some sort, and if it isn't fresh, the ants won't take it.  Amdro is readily available and works well--when it's fresh (there are several Amdro products, but I'm referring to just the baseline type that has hydramethylnon as the active ingredient).

Non-fire ants (everything else):  Most other ants seem to go for sweet foods, although some switch between sweet and protein.  For sweet-feeding ants, I've had the best luck baiting them.  A number of companies make gel baits with a variety of slow-acting pesticides.  My favorites are Optigard and Advion.  The picture shows ants eating Advion on the exterior brick wall of my house.   They readily take it--I have never seen them refuse it, even when the bait is a couple of years old--and haul it back to the nest.  Usually a treatment or two takes care of them, or at least knocks their numbers down a lot.  Optigard usually only seems to be appealing to them the day I put it down, while Advion still gets feeding activity the next day.  I put a series of small amounts like those shown above on a trail and let them go to it.  Ideally, I locate the bait near where they're entering a nest.  There are other sweet baits; Terro is one that uses boric acid as the active ingredient.  You can also make your own boric acid/sugar/water mixture; boric acid is often sold in powder form as roach killer.  Dusted along baseboards indoors it will work on both roaches and ants.  It can also be mixed with sugar water 1 tsp per cup--or with peanut butter for fat-seeking ants.  SFGate has recipes and recommendations.  Terro has little glossy-finished cards to put the bait on; you can make your own from a similarly-constructed retail packaging box or, for indoor or outdoor use, Do-It-Yourself Pest Control has inexpensive stations to hold liquid or granular bait.

Problem ants (rare):  I sometimes have ants that don't seem to be interested in either Amdro or sweet baits; for them the only obvious solution is a non-ingested pesticide.  Orthene powder works well but it's pretty toxic.  It will work on fire ants, too--dust around and over the top of the mound and ants will track it into the nest, killing it--but that leaves it laying in the yard.  A liquid solution, like Termidor or a generic equivalent, will also work and seems less hazardous to birds and other non-targeted animals.