What Can Florida Schools Do To Control Fire Ants?
Florida schools need to take special precautions to control fire ants, and what they can do to be most proactive in protecting students is to call on Fire Ant Control, LLC. We serve all types of properties – from homes and businesses to parks, farms, and schools. Other measures can be harmful and will never work as well as the treatment we provide. Get it right the first time to protect the students in your district.
Protecting Students from Fire Ants
Red imported fire ants are the worst among the fire ant species. They’re aggressive, and they breed incredibly quickly. As a non-native species, red imported fire ants have a leg up on other ants competing for resources, including food, water, and space. In the 90 or so years red imported fire ants have been in the United States, they have established a stronghold within the southern states, especially Florida.
Fire ants are dangerous; their appearance serves as a warning. A deep red thorax and black abdomen, a biting mandible, and a stinger mark these ants as the monsters of the insect world that they are.
Red imported fire ants are also viciously aggressive. They perceive threats at the slightest hint of disruption to their mound and will swarm from it by the hundreds. An attack will include hundreds of fire ants climbing vertically, biting, and holding on while stinging and injecting their unique venom. Removing the fire ants is the only way to stop them from stinging, and panicking children often struggle to remove them.
The venom they inject causes unique blisters with a white center, which hurts and burns. Cleaning the area with soap and water or an alcohol wipe is the best action, and the area may need to be treated with hydrocortisone. The fire ant victim may also need an antihistamine if an allergic response occurs. If the allergic reaction turns to anaphylaxis, immediate treatment with epinephrine may be required to prevent death.
Since young students may be unaware of an allergy, the schoolyard is one of the most important places to protect from unwanted fire ants.
As driven as fire ants are in defense of the colony, they are just as driven in their construction and expansion. In terms of population, the queen’s only job is to lay thousands of eggs daily, so fighting the colony without addressing reproduction is a zero-sum game.
The physical colony, marked by networks of underground tunnels, is always expanding. When fire ants run out of space for expansion, they will colonize new areas, including underneath foundations and inside school cafeterias, locker rooms, and classrooms.
Fire Ant Control, LLC, Treatment
The treatment we at Fire Ant Control, LLC, provide depends on a potent granular bait that we spread every four months to keep properties up to 99% free of red imported fire ants. This bait has been approved for use around animals and people, targets the queen’s ability to reproduce, and requires a complete life cycle for the initial treatment to reach full results. We stop the queen from being able to lay eggs, so as the living ants reach the end of their life cycle, the colony reaches its demise.
As a school groundskeeper in Florida, stop worrying about what you can do to control fire ants. The solution is to call (239) 312-8200 or contact us online to book service from Fire Ant Control, LLC. We offer a money-back guarantee for clients that follow through with thrice annual service appointments.