Amdro® Fire Ant Bait
In This Review:
Even if you've grown up in fire ant country, dealing with fire ants during peak season can be hectic. If you're new to fire ants, it's even worse. Home fire ant remedies are everywhere you look — and if you're relying on those solutions, fire ants are probably everywhere you look as well. To get rid of fire ants, you need to kill the queen, not just the surface ants you see. That's where proven fire ant baits, like Amdro Fire Ant Bait, can help you reclaim your life and your yard.
If you've learned how to identify fire ants and how to kill fire ant mounds and queens, you've probably seen many fire ant experts recommend bait to make sure you kill the queen — that's something that the best fire ant killers guarantee. Amdro Fire Ant Bait is ideal for treating individual fire ant mounds, but you can use it as a broadcast treatment, too. Either way, this bait kills fire ants and fire ant queens to destroy the entire fire ant colony.
Performance: Kills fire ant queens, destroys fire ant colonies
In contrast to fire ant killers that kill through contact, Amdro Fire Ant Bait takes a different route. The granules attract foraging worker ants, which think the bait is food. They carry it back to their colonies to feed other ants and their queens. Once the bait enters a colony's food supply, the colony is doomed.
The active ingredient in Amdro Fire Ant Bait is hydramethylnon, an often-recommended fire ant bait killer. This bait starts killing ants immediately, but a built-in delay makes sure foraging ants stay alive long enough to get bait back to the colony and queen. Once the queen eats the bait, she dies in about one week.
Amdro Fire Ant Bait kills imported and native fire ants, but it also kills other ants, including harvester ants, bigheaded ants and Argentine ants. The opened bait retains its effectiveness for up to three months when stored properly, so you can treat fire ants with confidence all season.
Application: Effective control, no watering-in
Amdro Fire Ant Bait comes in a rigid plastic shaker container that makes it easy to treat your yard or fire ant mounds. The bait granules have a corn grit base, so they look and smell like coarsely ground cornmeal. A handle provides a good grip for when you're applying the product, and the container cap has a shaker side and a pour side that keep you covered either way.
With Amdro Fire Ant Bait, you choose your application rate depending on what you're treating and how bad your fire ant infestation is. The label also includes a helpful illustration that shows you how to treat a fire ant mound. If you've never treated fire ants, you'll appreciate the picture.
For individual mounds, sprinkle 2 to 5 level tablespoons on and around an area extending 1 to 3 feet out from the mound's center. Take care not to disturb the mound so fire ants don't relocate — or swarm out and introduce you to fire ant stings. Once you've applied the bait, do not water-in the product. Bait is most effective when it stays dry.
For larger areas, work with a hand-held or regular broadcast spreader to ensure good coverage and simplify the job. Broadcast the granules at a rate of 2 to 4 ounces per 5,000 square feet. That translates to 1 to 2 pounds of Amdro Fire Ant Bait per acre.
For best results, apply bait in early morning or late afternoon when ants are actively foraging for food. Do not apply Amdro Fire Ant Bait when the ground is soaking wet or when your forecast includes heavy rain. As with most fire ant products, use this bait to treat fire ants and fire ant mounds in lawns and ornamental areas. Do not apply these granules to vegetable gardens or near other food crops.
Pets and Children:
The label on our 1-pound container of Amdro Fire Ant Bait had instructions to keep people and pets out of the area during application, but it didn't tell us how soon pets and people can reenter treated areas. We went to the product's website to learn if we need to protect our pets once bait has been applied.
According to the site, the active ingredient in this bait has very low toxicity for people, animals and birds. Once any dust settles, you and your pets can reenter the treated area.
As with any bait product, always scatter the bait. Never leave bait in piles that can attract inquisitive kids, wildlife or pets.
Competition: Amdro® Fire Ant Bait vs. Over'n Out!® Advanced Fire Ant Killer Mound Eliminator
We like both Amdro Fire Ant Bait and Over'n Out! Advanced Fire Ant Killer Mound Eliminator quite a bit. One reason is that you can use them to treat individual mounds, but you can use them for broadcast treatments, too. We appreciate being able to have one product that covers both uses.
Both these products are highly effective, but they kill fire ants in different ways. With the Amdro bait product, foraging ants mistake the bait for food, take it back to feed other ants and basically poison their queen. The queen dies in about one week, which destroys the colony. In contrast, the Over'n Out product is a contact killer that kills fire ant mounds in 15 minutes and kills queens within 24 hours. Plus, Over'n Out offers a protective barrier to keep fire ants away for up to six months.
We prefer Amdro Fire Ant Bait's rigid plastic container and handle over the Over'n Out product's resealable bag. The plastic container seems easier to use and store. You'll need to water-in the Over'n Out product after application, but bait should stay dry, so the Amdro product saves you an extra step, too.
When it comes to price, a 1-pound jug of Amdro Fire Ant Bait runs $12.97. We estimate it treats about 16 mounds at a rate of 2 tablespoons per mound. That comes out to about 81 cents each. A 4-pound bag of the Over'n Out product also treats 16 mounds. At a cost of $10.54, that's roughly 66 cents per mound. That's a good savings — especially given Over'n Out's residual protection — but Amdro is hard to beat if you're a bait fan.
Conclusions:
Amdro Fire Ant Bait is a convenient, highly effective, dual-purpose fire ant treatment that treats mounds and yards. Even though it costs more and takes longer than some treatments, the bait's reputation for reaching the queen and killing the colony seems worth the patience and the price.
The opinions represented in this article are the author's. However, the author has been paid by the owner of this website, Central Garden & Pet Company.
