A customer asked me today how to prevent Fire Ants from climbing the trees & getting into his hammock! I don't have an answer since I've never heard of this. Has anyone had a problem with this? Does anyone have a successful solution? Thanks....Ed
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A customer asked me today how to prevent Fire Ants from climbing the trees & getting into his hammock! I don't have an answer since I've never heard of this. Has anyone had a problem with this? Does anyone have a successful solution? Thanks....Ed
I've never seen that happen either, despite camping around them any number of times.
Put a little permethrin on the tree straps. They won't tolerate that.
That was my first thought too; but since I've never tried it, I'm hoping someone else has. I've yet to hang in places heavily infested with fire ants or any other insect pests, except mozzies & black flies. I have seen some remarkably scary climbing ant infestations in South America jungle, but wasn't hanging nearby--and wouldn't want to either. But do we have a problem with climbing fire ants here in southern US?
Not specifically fire ants ... I've had first hand experience with carpenter ants and red ants and several versions of the little annoying ants ... none have ventured out on the straps that have had the pemethren treatment. Pretty sure that would hold true for fire ants.
I've seen fire ants climb all over anything near a nest, so I have no doubt that a suspension would be fair game. I just haven't seen that personally.
I've had tiny ants climbing the tree that I was attached to. I've not seen any making a bee line for my hammock via my amsteel rope. I do remember seeing an ant or two on my original clark rope. I've had large black ants fall out of the trees onto my tarp. No problems with fire ants. Just don't set up your hammock with them at your feet and don't put your backpack on their nest/home either. I don't put anything on my straps, I figure I'd rather have the ants just continue up or down the tree and not be glancing over at my hammock as a way around permethrin coated straps!!!
I saw them swarm a running lawn mower ... personally saw that. Had to leave it running (prior to the mandatory kill switches) and got the local Ag guy out. He killed off the colony with something out of a tank and a wand he stuck down in the nest. Took them a half hour after the mower ran out of gas to decide to leave it alone.
Nasty little beasts :scared:
I don't live in fire ant country, so I am not speaking from experience, but my thought would be to just set up where the fire ants aren't.