There was a post showing a picture of a out door ac electric box.That a
favorite nesting place for fire ants,they short out the power curcuit
of the ac system costing the owner a lot money.Any one want to take
a shot at why fire ants are atracted electricity.Why don't the electricity
kill them. Have you heard of fire ants,your experience with fire ants.
Member's and guest reply it sort of poll. It's about electricity so be nice
and help a member. Fact,if you have certain allergie's one fire ant sting
can kill you. poll, have you ever seen a fire ant mound. Have any
opinion's about the electrical concept,s involved in the hot ac power unit's.
HELPING LOOSEWIRE The edit box won't let me clean this
post up may take it down,help Dave

 

Ant's aren't the only critters in the insect world attracted to electricity, just the ones that will eat you if you disturb their nest.

Last I've heard, and I'm claiming no expertise here, is no one really knows why they do it. If I'm wrong I'd love to hear the reasons.

 

I don't think it's the electricity. I battle the fire ants almost year round. Never had them nest in anything electric. Just have the usual yard mounds. Don't think the allergy thing is true either. Very rare to only get stung by one ant, usually several at a time... Don't hear many stories of people being rushed to the hospital after being stung, can't remember a death. I would think Florida would be a prime place for such a thing. They are always present and active, we get 100s of thousands of tourists each year, many not familiar with the local wildlife hazards...

 

To the Ineffable All,

Anyone with problem ants should buy or rent an aardvark. They are the first word in the dictionary and the last word in anteaters. They can rip up an ant mound faster then 3 men with pickaxes and shovels. Ratch

 

loosewire,you from FL,Ft Laud here.There a lot data on line about death
and ac outdoor power units. I like Marshall,texas to do some of my research.
Some place's in Fl is good ,as Fl get built out and people spray
there lawn's with pesticide's. I do non-toxic work on fire ants.
My post are chopping up for some reason.

 

The online data I've reviewed suggest suggest two tenths percent of people stung by fire ants actually die. Seems only half a percent or so require hospitalization. Allergic reaction isn't the problem. Standing in sheer ignorance knee-deep in an anthill is the problem.

I suspect the ants are able to survive in electrical enclosures for two reasons. My first suspicion is that only a few of them would be in a position to conduct electricity, and only on occasion. My second suspicion is chiton may be a poor conductor.

The sting is indeed painful, but I've found wasps to be worse and yellow-jackets worse still.

 

Oddly enough, fire ant stings will relieve arthritis for some hours.

I rented a duplex some years ago that had air conditioner problems each spring. There were glossy black ants on the relay contacts, preventing them from closing. One push with a screwdriver handle mashed the ants and got the compressor running. This happened three years in a row, so I had to imagine they were attracted to the contacts because of the electric fields.

 

I've been reading about a new immigrant in Houston called crazy ants that are even worse. They have multiple queens in a nest, and after tearing up something, or having a tech or owner respond by opening up the encloser, move on in a hour or so, which makes them hard to kill. Guess I'd better get used to them, they'll be in Dallas soon. Another reason to love my house geckos, who eat 5X their body weight in insects every day. Assuming the ants don't eat them first they'll like a new food source.

 

Good replies I want keep the dialog going,the all black ants in your
power box sound like sugar ants,if you see them again look chose.
See if they red & black,red fire ants.More about electricity,our
new electrical engineer's might take look about conductivity of
electricity in ac unit. The post about ac condenser's had little
dialog.What is causeing my post chop?

 

..What is causeing my post chop?

Can you be more specific on what you mean by the term "post chop"?

hgmjr

 

THe line's of the text some are long ,short and space's in between.
Hgmjr tryed to private message you,how,no promlem getting Dave.

 

Good replies I want keep the dialog going,the all black ants in your power box sound like sugar ants,if you see them again look chose. See if they red & black,red fire ants.More about electricity, our new electrical engineer's might take look about conductivity of electricity in ac unit. The post about ac condenser's had little dialog.What is causeing my post chop?

I qouted your post and it seemed to have a number of hard linefeeds in it. Are you pre-composing your replies using a text editor on your computer and then pasting the text into the reply box or are you using the forum editing features?

hgmjr

 

useing forum editing feature's,the post looks good then I click on
sumit.Then I see it again its chopped.How about the private
message,I put name in and system says there no such name.
THANK A LOT LOOSEWIRE

 

You can kill fire ants with aspartame or orange juice and repel them with baby powder - Learn how to kill pests without killing yourself or the earth...... There are about 50 to 60 million insect species on earth - we have named only about 1 million and there are only about 1 thousand pest species - already over 50% of these thousand pests are already resistant to our volatile, dangerous, synthetic pesticide POISONS. We accidentally lose about 25,000 to 100,000 species of insects, plants and animals every year due to "man's footprint". But, after poisoning the entire world and contaminating every living thing for over 60 years with these dangerous and ineffective pesticide POISONS we have not even controlled much less eliminated even one pest species and every year we use/misuse more and more pesticide POISONS to try to "keep up"! Even with all of this expensive and unnecessary pollution - we lose more and more crops and lives to these thousand pests every year.
We are losing the war against these thousand pests mainly because we insist on using only synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers There has been a severe "knowledge drought" - a worldwide decline in agricultural R&D, especially in production research and safe, more effective pest control since the advent of synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers. Today we are like lemmings running to the sea insisting that is the "right way". The greatest challenge facing humanity this century is the necessity for us to double our global food production with less land, less water, less nutrients, less science, frequent droughts, more and more contamination and ever-increasing pest damage.

National Poison Prevention Week, March 18-24,2007 was created to highlight the dangers of poisoning and how to prevent it. One study shows that about 70,000 children in the USA were involved in common household pesticide-related (acute) poisonings or exposures in 2004. At least two peer-reviewed studies have described associations between autism rates and pesticides (D'Amelio et al 2005; Roberts EM et al 2007 in EHP). It is estimated that 300,000 farm workers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year just in the United States - No one is checking chronic contamination.
In order to try to help "stem the tide", I have just finished re-writing my IPM encyclopedia entitled: THE BEST CONTROL II, that contains over 2,800 safe and far more effective alternatives to pesticide POISONS. This latest copyrighted work is about 1,800 pages in length and is now being updated at my new website at http://www.thebestcontrol2.com .
This new website at http://www.thebestcontrol2.com has been basically updated; all we have left to update is Chapter 39 and to renumber the pages. All of these copyrighted items are free for you to read and/or download. There is simply no need to POISON yourself or your family or to have any pest problems.
Stephen L. Tvedten
2530 Hayes Street
Marne, Michigan 49435
1-616-677-1261
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.

 

Me, I like my geckos. They work quite nicely for pest control.

 

There is simply no need to POISON yourself or your family or to have any pest problems.

Golly, that's good to know. Now what should I do with all this left-over DDT?

 

Beats me - I'm buying OJ stock.

 

SpringPondBver -Read again- NON-TOXIC-Guy's keep the dialog going. Read again the Harvey reply

HELPING LOOSEWIRE (Hanging loosely on a thread) Signature Maybe

 

Golly, that's good to know. Now what should I do with all this left-over DDT?

Pour it down the drain? I know! Kill the wevels in the bird feed!

 

Why do ac unit short out full of fire ant's.