[TheForge] Fw: Fire ants

[Bruce Freeman]

Well, Jerry, I think you've just made history as the instigator of the
Burning of the South!

(Fire ants are no problem in the NE, and ant colonies in general are
rather small and easily controlled when they intrude on dwellings.  In
fact, when you have ants, you don't get termites.)

Watch out, folks!  The whole of the South is gonna go up on fire ant
cremations, now!  Except maybe parts of Louisiana, and other
particularly damp locales.

Everybody is gonna be wiping out his local nest this way.   If we're
luck, the fire marshals will clamp down on it after the first few
houses go up in flames, due to the ant tunnels under their
foundations.  Otherwise, one fine day, an entire state will have fed
black powder to the saturation point, and one guy sets it off...

Is there any hope the ants aren't making colonies around arsenals and
underground missile silos?

Constitutional question:  When a state is blown completely off the
map, can we evict their senators from Congress, or do we have to
retain them for tradition's sake?



On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 5:49 AM, Jerry Frost <akfrosty at mtaonline.net> wrote:
> Neutrons have good penetration, don't know about gammas. Maybe ask the Hulk?
>
> This talk of speculative ant killing methods reminds me of an episode from
> my adventurous and explorative youth. Father's passed on now so I'll relate
> the experience. We used to have two basic kinds of ants, big red ants and
> big black ants, the red being the more agressive, hence evil ones. There
> were small red ants that were damn nasty, maybe fire ants but I don't know.
> Anyway, as kids we tried all kinds of things to kill off nests, most
> failures. I say most because I know of one that worked spectacularly well.
>
> I swiped a 2lb. cam of 3F black powder from Dad's reloading bench and bought
> a 5lb. bag of powdered sugar. I started by laying a trail of sugar from the
> nest to a small pile of sugar, within two days I had the worker ants trained
> to scout the route several times a day, sugar or no. Next I mixed the sugar
> and 3F powder and put about 1/4c a day in the pile. It wasn't long before
> there was literally a 4 lane ant highway hauling "sugar" goodness to the
> nest. When I was about of mix I "sweetened" the mix by doubling the 3F and
> watched till the ants had hauled almost every grain to the nest.
>
> At that point I dropped a lit match at the end of the caravan of sugar 3F
> coated ants and watched the fuse follow the industrious critters into the
> hole. In just a few seconds a bit more than a wisp of smoke began coming
> out, then a jet of smoke and burning ants started shooting out of the hive
> on a smallish pilar of fire. I backed off as I thought the nest would
> explode, HOPING it was going to that is but no, it just spit flame, smoke
> and burning ants for probably 15 mins before it slowed down to just a jet of
> smoke.
>
> As the show started slowing down I looked up and noticed a fire was getting
> going in some weeds about 10' or so away and rushed over to stomp it out.
> Sure as apples float there was another flaming ant guyser. It sure kept me
> busy looking for more till everything died down completely.
>
> Killed the nest dead but not as dead as Dad would've killed me if he'd found
> out.
>
> Jer
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrew Vida" <osan at netlabs.net>
> To: "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2011 2:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Fw: Fire ants
>
>
>>I wonder how far down a strong hard-gamma emmitter will penetrate...
>>
>> On 12/9/2011 9:24 AM, Ron Childers wrote:
>>> If that theory works, dry ice dumped in a poke hole or c02 should work.
>>> Seltzer water isn't good for much else except to ruin good Scotch. As we
>>> learned, propane is heavier than air.....
>>
> ______________________________________________________________
> TheForge mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/theforge
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:TheForge at mailman.qth.net
>
> TheForge mail list group photo site is
> http://www.photoworks.com
> Login: blacksmithblacksmith at hotmail.com
> Password: anvil
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html



-- 
Bruce
NJ