Massive fire ant infestation in Hawaii is largest on record, officials warn

[Still Waters]

The discovery of millions of fire ants in Kauai, Hawaii, marks the island's most extensive infestation since the invasive species was first detected there in 1999, the news website SFGATE reported.

The infestation poses a risk to pets, the agriculture industry, and residents and tourists visiting Hawaii's fourth-largest island, according to SFGATE.

"They're changing the way of life for our residents here in Hawaii," said Heather Forester, who works for Hawaii Ant Lab, per the news website.

"You used to be able to go out hiking and go to the beach. They can rain down on people and sting them."

Forester told SFGATE that the ants could invade people's homes in heavily infested areas. "We have a lot of reports of them stinging people while they sleep in their beds," she said.

https://www.sciencealert.com/massive-fire-ant-infestation-in-hawaii-is-largest-on-record-officials-warn

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/little-fire-ants-kauai-hawaii-17568003.php

[+joc]

The committee hopes to contain the spread of millions of fire ants,

Good luck!  There is only one way to get rid of them.  Quarantine every property on which they are found and spray the entire property with a chemical that doesn't poison them  but keeps their endoskeletons from growing.  Very expensive and very unlikely to happen.

But even then you can't really get rid of them.  In the article it talks about fire ants raining down on people...so true!  After a rain, they build a mound and bring all their eggs into the mound to avoid saturation...then the Kings and Queens use the mound as a launching site.   They fly off into the air to mate...thousands and thousands of ants flying around in the air.   What goes up must come down.  Where ever a fertilized queen lands...she starts a new colony.  It is a never ending battle.  

And you cannot get rid of them with poisons.  If you put poison on a nest, when the fire ants start to die off in great numbers the queens move...and there are several...all going in different directions taking part of the colony with them.  So, where you had one now you have five.  

[simplybill]

The fire ants in Hawaii must be different than the fire ants in Louisiana. I was helping some friends with their yard work in Louisiana and I looked down and saw my legs spotted with welts. I didn’t even know I’d been bitten, but a week later the welts began to itch and I sort of went crazy scratching my legs trying to get the itching to stop. 

[Wreck7]

Back in the early 80s, I was stationed at Ft. Polk, La. The fire ants were horrible. One day we were training on an explosives range and there were huge fire ant mounds everywhere. We set a 12 pound shape charge on the biggest mound and set it off. It left a perfect post hole about 8 feet deep where the fire ants were.

It's the only sure way I know of to get rid of them.

[+joc]

20 hours ago, simplybill said:

The fire ants in Hawaii must be different than the fire ants in Louisiana. I was helping some friends with their yard work in Louisiana and I looked down and saw my legs spotted with welts. I didn’t even know I’d been bitten, but a week later the welts began to itch and I sort of went crazy scratching my legs trying to get the itching to stop. 

No they are the same ants.  If you didn't feel them it is because you are not allergic to the 'pain' ingredient in their venom which paralyzes the insects they sting.

And 'sting' is correct.  They don't bite...they have a stinger on their tale like a wasp. 

You've heard people say that mosquitoes never bite them?  Wrong...mosquitos bite everyone...but some people are not allergic to the anticoagulant injected by their probiscus,  so they never feel it.  And fire ants sting everyone...most people are incredibly allergic to the venom and it feels like, well...fire.  Hence the name.   You are a lucky man Bill...or maybe not.  Got to be careful because if you can't feel them they could cover your body with welts and then my friend...you are seriously set up at the train station for sepsis.

Fire ants came from South America 75 years ago but most often they are spread to other countries and states from the southern US. 

EDIT:   Just read your post again...you probably had Chiggers or some other kind of yard creature...I'll never forget the time I wound up with Straw mites from walking through some tall grass...shiver me timbers...they were horrible...and you can't see them.

I have actually never known anyone who didn't feel fireants sting immediately.

Edited November 15, 2022 by joc

[simplybill]

@joc You may be correct that it was a different type of ant/insect, because I didn’t feel a thing. I remember looking down at my arms and legs and seeing about a dozen welts, and I was surprised that I hadn’t even felt the ants crawling on me. 

Afterwards, I wrote this story on Facebook. Note: I have a very dry sense of humor that doesn’t translate very well to the written word, but my friends that know me in person find it entertaining.

March 14, 2015

I’ve been away from FB for some time, and now that I’m back, I’m struggling to come up with a good story to post! It’s been a long, cold winter, and my days have mostly been filled with the grueling minutiae of everyday life, but I did have one minor adventure worth writing about:

My friends Cindy & Bill live in Louisiana. They recently bought a “fixer-upper” home on Bayou Terrabonne, near the Gulf of Mexico. The yard and the bayou frontage had been neglected for some time, and needed the attention of an amateur landscape artist (me). 

Louisiana has fire ants. I’ve always been curious to see just how serious their bites were, having heard ghastly stories of people writhing in pain from being swarmed by hundreds of the creatures. I just couldn’t imagine that a tiny ant could be so harmful. 

And it turns out, I was right!  Well, sort of. As I was pulling the weeds and chopping the tangled vines that had grown up into the chain-link fence, I looked down and saw a red cloud moving up my work glove and on to my arm. I stood there with my mouth open, fascinated, watching a horde of tiny ants moving in sync, acting as a cohesive unit to protect their territory. 

When I came to my senses, I gently brushed the ants off of my arm. I told Cindy and Bill, “Hey, I guess I got into a nest of fire ants.” They ran over to me immediately, with dire looks of concern on their faces. They were seriously worried, and Bill asked Cindy to go in the house to get the First Aid Kit. I thought it was funny to see them over-reacting to a few little ant bites! I honestly felt no pain or irritation at all. The only reaction I had from the bites were some little red bumps on my arm.

Later that day, as I was chopping down some banana trees that had been  damaged by below-freezing temperatures, I looked down at my legs and saw the tell-tale red bumps of another ant encounter. I hadn’t felt a thing! It gave me an entirely different perspective on those often-maligned yet delightful ginger-colored creatures of the earth! Whereas at one time I felt ambivalent about fire ants, and had visions of myself writhing in pain on the ground, I now held a deep respect for these fascinating and industrious little workers.  

About a week later, I was at home lounging on the sofa, watching a movie, when one of those little red bumps started feeling itchy.  Now, I’m always careful not to scratch mosquito bites or poison ivy, because it only gets worse. The itching  is progressively magnified in amplitude as the scratching becomes increasingly more frantic.

 Unfortunately, I gave in to the incessant itching of those little red bumps.  It’s not too much of an exaggeration to tell you that for the next half-hour, the air in my living room was filled with broken fingernails, bloody chunks of flesh, and some unfortunate language. And the writhing! Oh, the writhing.

I’m much better now. I’ll keep applying Vitamin E oil, and hopefully the scars won’t be so noticeable. But a word of caution to all of you if you’re ever traveling down South: avoid the fire ants! Evil little creatures, they are. Every one of ’em.

[+joc]

4 hours ago, simplybill said:

@joc You may be correct that it was a different type of ant/insect, because I didn’t feel a thing. I remember looking down at my arms and legs and seeing about a dozen welts, and I was surprised that I hadn’t even felt the ants crawling on me. 

Afterwards, I wrote this story on Facebook. Note: I have a very dry sense of humor that doesn’t translate very well to the written word, but my friends that know me in person find it entertaining.

March 14, 2015

I’ve been away from FB for some time, and now that I’m back, I’m struggling to come up with a good story to post! It’s been a long, cold winter, and my days have mostly been filled with the grueling minutiae of everyday life, but I did have one minor adventure worth writing about:

My friends Cindy & Bill live in Louisiana. They recently bought a “fixer-upper” home on Bayou Terrabonne, near the Gulf of Mexico. The yard and the bayou frontage had been neglected for some time, and needed the attention of an amateur landscape artist (me). 

Louisiana has fire ants. I’ve always been curious to see just how serious their bites were, having heard ghastly stories of people writhing in pain from being swarmed by hundreds of the creatures. I just couldn’t imagine that a tiny ant could be so harmful. 

And it turns out, I was right!  Well, sort of. As I was pulling the weeds and chopping the tangled vines that had grown up into the chain-link fence, I looked down and saw a red cloud moving up my work glove and on to my arm. I stood there with my mouth open, fascinated, watching a horde of tiny ants moving in sync, acting as a cohesive unit to protect their territory. 

When I came to my senses, I gently brushed the ants off of my arm. I told Cindy and Bill, “Hey, I guess I got into a nest of fire ants.” They ran over to me immediately, with dire looks of concern on their faces. They were seriously worried, and Bill asked Cindy to go in the house to get the First Aid Kit. I thought it was funny to see them over-reacting to a few little ant bites! I honestly felt no pain or irritation at all. The only reaction I had from the bites were some little red bumps on my arm.

Later that day, as I was chopping down some banana trees that had been  damaged by below-freezing temperatures, I looked down at my legs and saw the tell-tale red bumps of another ant encounter. I hadn’t felt a thing! It gave me an entirely different perspective on those often-maligned yet delightful ginger-colored creatures of the earth! Whereas at one time I felt ambivalent about fire ants, and had visions of myself writhing in pain on the ground, I now held a deep respect for these fascinating and industrious little workers.  

About a week later, I was at home lounging on the sofa, watching a movie, when one of those little red bumps started feeling itchy.  Now, I’m always careful not to scratch mosquito bites or poison ivy, because it only gets worse. The itching  is progressively magnified in amplitude as the scratching becomes increasingly more frantic.

 Unfortunately, I gave in to the incessant itching of those little red bumps.  It’s not too much of an exaggeration to tell you that for the next half-hour, the air in my living room was filled with broken fingernails, bloody chunks of flesh, and some unfortunate language. And the writhing! Oh, the writhing.

I’m much better now. I’ll keep applying Vitamin E oil, and hopefully the scars won’t be so noticeable. But a word of caution to all of you if you’re ever traveling down South: avoid the fire ants! Evil little creatures, they are. Every one of ’em.

That is a great story.   Fire ants are no friend to me.  I have a 55 gallon barrel that I use to kill fire ants.   It has a spigot at the bottom.  I put the barrel on my tailgate and fill it with water and dump in a bottle of Triazicide from Home Depot.  Then I drive out to where I saw fire ant mounds and drag a water hose from mound to mound...it just trickles so I sit in a camping chair while it slowly trickles into the mound...And I talk to the ants.  I usually recite this mantra to each fire ant mound:

Hello, and thank you for flying with Triazicide.  Your one way, non-stop flight to ...death!   Please make sure that you have all your baggage with you...because..you will not be coming back.  Again, thank you for flying with Triazicide.  We hope that you enjoy your death as much as we have enjoyed killing  you!  

[simplybill]

51 minutes ago, joc said:

Hello, and thank you for flying with Triazicide.  Your one way, non-stop flight to ...death!   Please make sure that you have all your baggage with you...because..you will not be coming back.  Again, thank you for flying with Triazicide.  We hope that you enjoy your death as much as we have enjoyed killing  you!  

@joc - being a former flight attendant, I really got a kick out of that. 

But now I’m curious. Next time I’m in Louisiana, I’ll go on a quest to locate a confirmed fire ant anthill and I’ll catch one ant and put it on my arm and study the results. I’ll use my iPhone to record my findings (and possibly my screaming).

[+joc]

27 minutes ago, simplybill said:

@joc - being a former flight attendant, I really got a kick out of that. 

But now I’m curious. Next time I’m in Louisiana, I’ll go on a quest to locate a confirmed fire ant anthill and I’ll catch one ant and put it on my arm and study the results. I’ll use my iPhone to record my findings (and possibly my screaming).

You probably won't have to go too far.  They pretty much blanket the entire south.  

[HollyDolly]

They are everywhere, we have them here too. But people are good about killing them.Maybe this is a stupid question, but how did they get to Hawaii,? In some ship balast maybe?