THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 17, 1995 TAG: 9506170326
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
It may be the ultimate sting operation.
Hordes of fire ants swarming their way north for 60 years - through South America, Central America, Mexico, Texas, the Deep South into Virginia.
Those nasty, deceptively small insects with jaws like a Rottweiler's, a sting like a hornet's and the personality of a rattlesnake.
They haven't set up permanent housekeeping here yet. But they're trying. So far this year, 15 fire-ant nests - five in the past six weeks - have been discovered and destroyed in Hampton Roads. Last year, there were five nests adjacent to the Harrison Opera House in downtown Norfolk.
These are not creatures you want in your neighborhood - or in your pants.
``First they seize on the skin with their mandibles,'' explains a dispassionate Jim Pierce of the Virginia Department of Agriculture, Hampton Roads' ant man. ``Then they begin stinging and they don't stop until you kill 'em.''
Or they kill you. Time magazine reports that at least 50 people have died in recent years from allergic reactions to fire-ant stings.
Pierce has been attacked a few times. It's not something you forget, he says.
``If you disturb their mound at all they boil out like hornets,'' he says. ``The next thing you know they're all over you.
``It hurts when they start stinging. I won't lie to you. And you're left with little blisters.''
Fire ants first hitchhiked to the United States on plant material in the 1930s. In parts of the Deep South where they have taken up permanent residence, they've rendered farmland useless, harassed livestock and become a major nuisance in residential areas.
Pierce says the first Virginia ant colony was discovered in 1989. Since then there have been 800.
All but one have been in Hampton Roads.
But ant men are acalm bunch, not panicked by these numbers.
``I hesitate to use the word `eradicated' when I talk about fire ants,'' says Pierce. ``But I don't think there is a single active mound in the state right now.''
These monarchical bugs live in colonies that reach depths of four feet in the soil.
Residing in the heart of the corridors and tunnels is the queen.
She's public enemy number one: Without her, the colony dies.
The Department of Agriculture ant hunters go after the queen this way: they bait the workers with Amdro, a chemical that kills the queen after she eats it.
Six weeks later the scientists drench the mound with the powerful insecticide Dursban.
Just to be sure.
Pierce says this system works.
In the six years he and his office have been fighting fire ants they've never had a colony re-emerge.
But new colonies do appear. With new ants, Pierce says.
Most probably are imported to the area on rootballs in new landscaping - despite USDA regulations requiring all nursery stock from infested areas to be treated before it is shipped.
How do you know if those little hymenopteran insects are of the fire ant variety?
Fire ants look like their gentle little cousins.
They're small and black - nothing in their appearance suggests their carnivorous appetites.
You need to look at the mound.
If it's about an inch high, you're looking at what Pierce calls pavement ants. Cute fellows.
If the mound is 18 inches high and about a foot wide, Pierce has two words for you: watch out.
Even if you take a long stick and give the mound a little poke you're in serious trouble.
``Oh they'll get you,'' Pierce says with certainty. ``You can't even get close to their mound without them boiling out.''
Best to let the ant men take a look, Pierce says.
You'd think Pierce and his associates at the Department of Agriculture would hate fire ants, but they don't.
In fact, Pierce says, the bugs are beneficial in one way - they are predators of the boll weevil.
Of course, they're predators of just about everything: native ants, insects, small animals and just about anything else that gets in their way.
There is some debate among the experts about whether fire ants mate with common ants, giving birth to a breed of very irritable pavement ants.
Pierce doesn't buy that.
``Once fire ants establish themselves, all you seem to have are fire ants,'' Pierce says. ``I think what happens is they kill off all the native ants.''
Armed with Amdro and Dursban and a determination to keep fire ants out of the neighborhood, Pierce says he see no reason to panic.
``I have no doubt we'll find more of them,'' he says. ``But I don't foresee a permanent infestation.'' ILLUSTRATION: THE MARCH FROM MOBILE
Map
JOHN EARLE/Staff
FILE PHOTO BY MAXIE ROBERTS
The State
Fire-ant hunters use a chemical that kills the queen after she eats
it. Six weeks later they drench the mound with an insecticide. Just
to be sure.
by CNB