- 5 weeks ago
🔗 Save $6,000 A Year with My Complete Amish Home-Saving Method I teach:
https://eliasyoder.com
You walk out to the back pasture in the morning and there it is. A mound the size of a dinner plate, fresh-pushed-up dirt the color of cinnamon, right in the middle of where the children walked yesterday. You take one step closer and the whole top of the mound moves — thousands of small red bodies boiling up out of the ground in seconds, climbing whatever they can climb, stinging anything warm. Fire ants. The most aggressive insect in this country, and the one pest that no folk remedy has truly mastered in two hundred years of folks trying.
And folks have tried everything. Coffee grounds. Grits. Dish soap. Bleach. Gasoline lit on fire. Boiling water. Cinnamon. Cornmeal. You name a household substance and someone, somewhere, has poured it on a fire ant mound and sworn it worked.
In this video I walk you through the five wildest DIY fire ant remedies folks have sworn by — and I tell you the honest truth about each one. Which ones do nothing. Which ones kill a few surface ants but leave the queen alive in her deep castle. And which one I will not put on this channel under any circumstance,
https://eliasyoder.com
You walk out to the back pasture in the morning and there it is. A mound the size of a dinner plate, fresh-pushed-up dirt the color of cinnamon, right in the middle of where the children walked yesterday. You take one step closer and the whole top of the mound moves — thousands of small red bodies boiling up out of the ground in seconds, climbing whatever they can climb, stinging anything warm. Fire ants. The most aggressive insect in this country, and the one pest that no folk remedy has truly mastered in two hundred years of folks trying.
And folks have tried everything. Coffee grounds. Grits. Dish soap. Bleach. Gasoline lit on fire. Boiling water. Cinnamon. Cornmeal. You name a household substance and someone, somewhere, has poured it on a fire ant mound and sworn it worked.
In this video I walk you through the five wildest DIY fire ant remedies folks have sworn by — and I tell you the honest truth about each one. Which ones do nothing. Which ones kill a few surface ants but leave the queen alive in her deep castle. And which one I will not put on this channel under any circumstance,
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00You walk out to the back pasture in the morning, and there it is, a mound the size of a
00:05dinner plate, fresh pushed up dirt the color of cinnamon, right in the middle of where the children walked yesterday.
00:12You take one step closer, and the whole top of the mound moves, thousands of small red bodies boiling up
00:20out of the ground in seconds, climbing whatever they can climb, stinging anything warm.
00:25Fire ants. The most aggressive insect in this country, and the one pest that no folk remedy has truly mastered
00:34in 200 years of folks trying.
00:36And folks have tried everything. Coffee grounds, grits, dish soap, bleach, gasoline lit on fire, boiling water, cinnamon, corn meal,
00:49baby powder, club soda, vinegar,
00:52cayenne pepper, cucumber peels. You name a household substance, and someone, somewhere, has poured it on a fire ant mound
01:01and sworn it worked.
01:03Half of them have made YouTube videos about it. The other half have written it in a comment under someone
01:09else's YouTube video.
01:11But which ones actually work, and which ones are wasting your time, your money, and your good kitchen pantry?
01:19Today, I am going to walk you through the five wildest fire ant remedies folks have sworn by.
01:25Coffee grounds, grits, dish soap, bleach, and gasoline and fire.
01:31And I am going to tell you the honest truth about each one. Which ones do nothing? Which ones kill
01:38a few surface ants, but leave the queen alive in her deep castle?
01:43And which one I will not put on this channel under any circumstance, no matter how many people swear by
01:49it, because the cost of a single mistake is too high.
01:54Then, because I do not want to leave you with only a list of failures, I will show you the
01:59real old method that the careful country folks have used to take down fire ant colonies for as long as
02:06boric acid has been on the shelf.
02:09The bait that the workers carry back to the queen. The same trophallaxis trick we used on the wasps. And
02:16the two free, gentle methods that go with it.
02:20My name is Elias Yoder. I am Amish, and I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
02:26We do not have the worst of the fire ant trouble up here. They live mostly in the warm south.
02:32But Esther and I have friends and family across many southern states, and I have heard every story, tried many
02:40of them, and watched what worked and what did not.
02:44Let me tell you the truth.
02:47Quick word before we go further. There are a great many things in this country that folks are paying good
02:53money for every month, and the old methods make most of those bills go away.
02:59I have put as many of them as I could think of into a book at EliasYoder.com.
03:05I will not push it again. If you want the whole collection, it is there.
03:10Now, first, before we go a step further, one safety word that matters every minute of this video.
03:19Fire ants are dangerous. A disturbed mound puts out hundreds of stinging ants in seconds, and they swarm up your
03:28boots and into your trousers faster than you can step back.
03:31People with sting allergies have died from a single mass attack.
03:37Never stand directly on a mound while treating it. Never have a small child near one.
03:44Always wear high boots and long pants. Have someone with you if you are sensitive to stings.
03:51This is not optional. The ant takes the treatment seriously. You must, too. Stay with me.
04:00The first wild remedy is coffee grounds. Half the internet swears by it.
04:06Sprinkle fresh or used coffee grounds on the mound, they say, and the ants will pack up and leave, or
04:13die, or shrivel, or some combination of those.
04:17I want to be honest about what coffee grounds actually do. Almost nothing.
04:23There is a faint, very brief repellent effect from fresh coffee grounds.
04:29The strong smell may discourage ants from foraging across them for a day or two, similar to how a strong
04:36spice will.
04:37But fire ants do not eat solid coffee grounds. The grounds do not penetrate the mound.
04:43The queen is 20 feet down in her tunnel system, completely unaware, and within a week, the mound is back
04:51to normal.
04:52Sometimes with the grounds worked into the mound as bedding material, which the ants do not mind at all.
04:59If you have a coffee shop down the road giving away free, used grounds, and you want to put them
05:05on your garden as a mulch, they help the soil a bit, the ants ignore them.
05:10But as a fire ant killer, coffee grounds do not kill a fire ant colony. Period.
05:16Whoever told you they did was repeating something they heard from someone who heard it from someone, and nobody in
05:25that chain actually tested it. Move on.
05:29The second wild remedy is grits. This one is older than the YouTube videos.
05:35The story goes back at least to my grandfather's day, and you will find it in country newspapers from the
05:411950s.
05:43Sprinkle uncooked instant grits on the mound. The ants will eat them. The grits will swell up inside the ants.
05:51The ants will explode.
05:53It sounds satisfying. It is also completely wrong, and the biology is plain.
06:00Ants cannot eat solid food. They simply can't. An ant's mouth and throat are too narrow to swallow anything larger
06:08than a fine liquid.
06:10Worker ants gather food and bring it back to the colony, where it is processed by the larvae.
06:16The larvae have stronger digestion and can liquefy solids, after which they regurgitate the food in liquid form back to
06:25the workers and the queen.
06:27No ant at any stage swallows a whole grit and explodes from it. The whole story is impossible from the
06:35ground up.
06:36What actually happens when you put grits on a mound is the ants pick them up as building material, carry
06:43them around, the grits get wet from rain or dew, and the mound goes on as before.
06:49Grits do not kill fire ants.
06:52I have heard this story all my life, and it has been bothering me for years.
06:57Put your grits in a pot of water on the stove. They are too good for the ants, and the
07:03ants do not want them anyway.
07:05The third wild remedy is dish soap and water. Now this one I have to give honest credit to, because
07:12unlike the first two, this one actually does something.
07:16Pour a bucket of soapy water, a couple drops of plain dish soap in a few gallons of water, directly
07:23into the mound, and the surface ants do drown.
07:27The soap reduces the surface tension of the water and breaks the wax cuticle on the ants' bodies, and they
07:34suffocate.
07:35You will see dead ants. You will not eliminate the colony.
07:40Here is why.
07:42A fire ant colony can run 10 or 12 feet deep into the soil.
07:47The mound you see on the surface is the top of an iceberg.
07:51Down at the bottom, in tunnels too deep for a bucket of soapy water to reach, the queen sits with
07:58her brood chambers,
07:59and as long as she lives, she lays a thousand eggs a day to replace the workers you just drowned.
08:05Pour the soapy water, kill some of the workforce, and watch as a new mound forms three feet away from
08:13the old one within a week.
08:15The colony moved. It did not die.
08:19Soap and water is real, but it is what we call a surface treatment.
08:23It buys you a day of relief. It does not solve the problem.
08:28If a single mound has just popped up by your back door and your child is about to walk across
08:34it,
08:35by all means pour the soapy water and clear the immediate danger.
08:40But know what you have done.
08:42You cleared the workers on the surface.
08:44You did not kill the queen.
08:47The fourth wild remedy is bleach.
08:50Folks say pour a gallon of chlorine bleach on the mound and the ants will die from the toxic fumes.
08:56Does it work? Same answer as the soap, plus a couple of new problems.
09:02Bleach kills the ants it directly contacts on the surface, same as the soap.
09:07It does not penetrate deep enough to reach the queen.
09:11So, same outcome. Dead surface workers, colony intact, new mound nearby in a week.
09:18And bleach has problems the soap does not.
09:21Bleach is toxic to your lawn.
09:24It kills the grass.
09:26It kills earthworms in the soil, the helpful ones that aerate your dirt and feed your garden.
09:32It contaminates the soil for weeks.
09:35If a child or a pet walks through the wet area and licks their paws or rubs their eyes, they
09:41get a nasty chemical burn.
09:43And the fumes from a gallon of bleach on warm soil are unpleasant to breathe.
09:49So you get the same partial result as the soap, but with collateral damage to your lawn, your soil, your
09:56dog, and your nose.
09:58Skip the bleach.
10:00If you must do a surface treatment, soap and water is gentler and works just as well.
10:06Which is to say, partially.
10:10Before we get to the fifth one, the dangerous one, let me pause for a moment.
10:15Every home has leaks.
10:17Food, heat, water, electricity, laundry, repairs, and waste.
10:23Inside our Amish home savings system and community, Esther and I help you find those leaks and start fixing them
10:31one by one.
10:32The link is in the description.
10:35Now, the fifth remedy.
10:37And I have to be straight with you about this one because the cost of a mistake is real.
10:43The fifth wild remedy is gasoline poured on the mound and lit on fire.
10:50I want to tell you what folks say about it, and then I want to tell you why I will
10:54not recommend it and why I am going to ask you not to do it.
10:59Folks say to pour five gallons of gasoline into the mound and toss a match.
11:05The flames burn down into the tunnels.
11:08The gasoline saturates the soil and kills everything.
11:12The colony dies.
11:14The video the source channel made of it.
11:17Yes, the mound was empty when they came back two days later.
11:21It did appear to work.
11:23And it is the worst thing I can ask you to put on your own land.
11:27I will tell you straight what I have seen and what the records show.
11:32I have seen barns burn from less than five gallons of gasoline being mishandled in dry summer weather.
11:40Gasoline vapor travels along the ground in a thin, invisible layer that ignites in a flash.
11:48The person lighting it has burned hands and worse before they understand what happened.
11:54Children watching a parent do this have ended up in burn units.
11:59Yards have caught fire.
12:01Brush lines have caught fire.
12:04Houses have caught fire.
12:06Every summer there are real news stories of a man who tried this on his own lawn
12:12and ended up in the burn unit or in the obituary section.
12:16And there is the well.
12:18If you live in the country, you have a well.
12:21Your drinking water comes from somewhere in the soil under your feet.
12:26Five gallons of gasoline poured into one spot of ground reaches the water table in a lot of places,
12:32especially in sandy soil.
12:35And gasoline-contaminated water makes people sick.
12:39I have heard of families who poured gasoline on a fire ant mound
12:43and then could not drink from their own well for two years afterward.
12:49The gasoline had reached the aquifer and they had to drill a new well a hundred feet away.
12:55The cost ran to many thousands of dollars.
12:59And there is the law.
13:01In most states, pouring gasoline on the ground is a violation of the Clean Water Act
13:07and the state environmental codes.
13:10Folks have been fined thousands of dollars by the state environmental department
13:14when a neighbor reported them or when the contamination was traced back.
13:19It is not a gray area.
13:22Petroleum products do not belong in the soil.
13:25So would I recommend it?
13:28No.
13:29Even though the test showed it worked, I will not put it on this channel as a method to use.
13:35The cost of a single mistake, a barn fire, a child burned, a poisoned well, environmental fine,
13:43is too high for a single fire ant mound.
13:47There are better ways.
13:49Let me show you.
13:50Now I want to take a moment because here is where the video earns its keep.
13:56Because if four out of five popular remedies do not work and the fifth one is dangerous, what does work?
14:04The real answer is the same answer we used on the wasps two videos back.
14:11The slow acting bait that the workers carry home to the queen.
14:15And for fire ants, the bait is just as simple, just as cheap, and just as honest.
14:22The hero method, boric acid, plus sugar water, plus small bait stations near the mound.
14:30Here is the recipe.
14:32One cup of warm water.
14:34Eight teaspoons of plain white sugar, that is roughly two and a half tablespoons.
14:39Enough to make a sweet syrup the ants cannot resist.
14:43Half a teaspoon of pure boric acid powder.
14:46This is the one percent concentration that the entomologists say is the sweet spot.
14:53Too much boric acid and the workers die at the bait station before carrying any home,
14:59which defeats the purpose.
15:01Half a teaspoon per cup is the slow kill ratio.
15:05The workers live long enough to bring the bait back, feed the queen, and the colony dies a few days
15:11later.
15:11Stir until the sugar and boric acid are fully dissolved in the warm water.
15:18The liquid should be clear, not gritty.
15:21Gritty means the boric acid is not dissolved and the ants cannot drink solid crystals.
15:28Pour a small amount, about a tablespoon, into a small, shallow container,
15:33a bottle cap, an upturned plastic lid, a piece of cardboard with the liquid soaked into a cotton ball,
15:41anything that the ants can climb onto without drowning.
15:45Place the bait a few feet from the mound, not on the mound itself,
15:50but in the path where the worker ants are foraging out from it.
15:55Several stations around the mound work better than one.
15:58Then wait.
16:00Do not disturb the bait while the workers are feeding on it.
16:04You will see a small line of ants coming and going from the bait station,
16:09drinking the syrup and carrying it back to the colony.
16:13Within three to seven days the colony is dead.
16:17The queen is dead.
16:18The eggs are dead.
16:20The mound goes quiet.
16:21And it stays quiet because the whole colony is gone, not just the surface workers.
16:28A box of boric acid powder at the hardware store or pharmacy costs about $3 and lasts you years.
16:37The same safety word as the wasp bait.
16:40Keep the boric acid powder up high out of reach of children.
16:45Place the bait stations where small children cannot reach them and the dog cannot lick them.
16:52Treat it the same way you would treat the dish soap or the bleach under your sink.
16:57Common household chemical.
16:59Common household discipline.
17:01The second real method, free and gentle.
17:05Boiling water.
17:07Heat a large kettle of water to a hard boil.
17:10Three or four gallons is enough for an average mound.
17:14Wear good boots and long pants.
17:17Carry the kettle out to the mound.
17:20Pour the boiling water directly into the center of the mound, slowly and steadily.
17:26What it does.
17:28The boiling water flows down into the tunnels and kills every ant it touches,
17:34including, if you have enough water and pour it deep enough into the central opening,
17:39many of the deeper workers and sometimes the queen herself.
17:44The agricultural extension offices in the southern states have studied this method and found it kills about 60% of
17:53treated fire ant mounds.
17:55Not perfect, but a free, gentle, honest method that does not contaminate your soil, does not burn your barn down,
18:04and does not poison your well.
18:07The risk is the kettle of boiling water itself.
18:11Burns from a slipped kettle are real.
18:14Wear boots and long pants.
18:16Have a steady grip.
18:18Have a steady grip.
18:19Do not pour from a height that splashes.
18:22Some folks pair this with the boric acid bait.
18:25Pour the boiling water first to knock down the active mound and clear the surface workers,
18:32then place the boric acid bait stations a few feet away for the survivors and any remaining queen activity.
18:40The two methods together work better than either one alone.
18:46The third real method, diatomaceous earth dusted on the surface.
18:51I have spoken about diatomaceous earth on this channel before,
18:56that soft, white mineral powder that kills crawling insects by drying out their bodies as they crawl across it.
19:04For a fire ant mound, food-grade diatomaceous earth dusted lightly on the surface and around the mound will kill
19:13workers as they emerge and walk across it.
19:16It does not penetrate deep enough to reach the queen.
19:21But as a supplement to the boric acid bait, putting pressure on the surface workforce while the bait works on
19:28the colony from the inside,
19:30it strengthens the whole approach.
19:32And it is harmless to your soil, your garden, your dog, your bees, as long as you don't dust it
19:39on blooming flowers,
19:40and your children if used with the same household scents.
19:44So look at what we have actually learned today.
19:48Of the five popular DIY remedies, four do not work, and the fifth is too dangerous to recommend.
19:57Coffee grounds, myth.
20:00Grits, biology says no.
20:04Soap, surface kill only.
20:07Bleach, surface kill plus collateral damage.
20:13Gasoline and fire.
20:14Works on the colony, but risks your barn, your well, and your family's safety.
20:21Of the real methods that careful country folks have used for decades,
20:26boric acid plus sugar water bait kills the colony from the inside by letting the workers do the work for
20:34you.
20:35Boiling water poured into the central mound knocks down the active surface and reaches some of the depths.
20:43Diatomaceous earth dusted on the surface kills the workers who emerge.
20:48Together, the three of them, cheap, gentle, honest, handle a fire ant problem better than any of the five wild
20:58remedies.
20:59And here is the quiet truth about why this matters.
21:03There is a great deal of money in selling folks a $400 professional fire ant treatment.
21:09And there are real products on the shelf, Amdro, Extinguish, Taurus Trio, that work very well if you can afford
21:19them.
21:20They are baits using the same trophallaxis principle with stronger commercial insecticides instead of household boric acid.
21:29Those are honest products.
21:31If you want a guaranteed one-shot treatment and you have the money, buy them.
21:38They work.
21:39But the boric acid and sugar water bait I gave you today uses the same principle for 30 cents of
21:47ingredients you already have in the pantry.
21:51The commercial product gives you guaranteed results and convenience.
21:55The homemade bait gives you the same chemistry for the price of a Sunday morning.
22:02Both kill the queen.
22:04Both end the colony.
22:06The difference is just the dollars.
22:10There is no money for the pest control industry in teaching folks the homemade bait.
22:15There is no commercial advertising the boric acid and sugar trick.
22:20So nobody runs an ad telling you the answer is in your spice cabinet.
22:26And a whole country pours coffee grounds and grits on fire ant mounds wondering why nothing works.
22:34Now you know.
22:36So here is what I want you to do.
22:39This week, if you have fire ants on your property, do not waste a single morning on coffee grounds, grits,
22:47bleach, or gasoline.
22:49Buy a small box of plain boric acid powder at the hardware store or pharmacy.
22:55Three dollars.
22:57Stop at the grocery store for a bag of plain white sugar.
23:01Two dollars.
23:03Boil a kettle of water tonight for the active mound nearest your house.
23:08Pour it slowly into the center of the mound and have the boric acid and sugar bait stations placed a
23:15few feet away by morning.
23:17Within a week, the colony will be gone and the queen will be gone with it.
23:23And mind the safety.
23:26Boots.
23:27Long pants.
23:29No children near the mound.
23:32Boric acid up high.
23:34Boiling water carried steady.
23:37Respect the work and respect the ant.
23:41Tell me in the comments below.
23:44Which of the five wild remedies had you been told would work?
23:48And what region of the country are you fighting fire ants in?
23:52Texas?
23:54Florida?
23:55The Gulf Coast?
23:56The Carolinas?
23:58Tennessee?
23:59The folks who deal with fire ants worst have the best stories about what they have tried,
24:05and the rest of us learn the most from their telling.
24:08I read every single one.
24:12Next time, since we have spoken of how to handle the most aggressive insect on your property,
24:17I am going to show you the old way my people keep mice and rats out of the granary and
24:23the home.
24:24The simple traps, the doorway tricks, and the small habits that mean you never have a rodent problem in the
24:32first place.
24:33It is the natural next step after today.
24:37Until then, skip the gasoline, save the grits for breakfast, and trust the slow bait that the workers carry home
24:46to the queen.
24:48That is how the old folks did it.
24:50That is how it is still done.
24:53The mound goes quiet, and stays quiet, and your children can run across the pasture again.
Comments