Whew, is there any end to the infor­ma­tion about fire ants?

I have writ­ten 5 arti­cles about fire ants now and I haven’t even begun to tell every­thing there is to know. I give up for a while.  It’s time to think about Valentine’s Day.

For the guys, I’ll just say this is the most impor­tant hol­i­day, equal only to “The Birth­day” in the life of a romance.  It’s love’s per­fect time for posies, presents, pro­pos­als… and get­aways. I had to reflect back on one of my own Valentine’s get­aways when I was doing all this research, because that was my first intro­duc­tion to just what a dis­as­ter it can be to encounter the fero­cious red imported fire ant.

Now how, exactly, do romance and fire ants even get put in the same sen­tence?  Being from the DC area, we had never heard of fire ants, much less asso­ciate them with the child-free roman­tic retreat we had planned.  I cer­tainly would never have thought to include them in any of my rever­ies.  What a mis­take.   Our ideal vaca­tion was ruined.  Fire ants entered unbid­den and spoiled a long awaited and per­fectly planned (or so we thought) roman­tic getaway.

Any­one who has vis­ited Sani­bel Island in Florida would attest that it is a per­fect set­ting for a roman­tic ren­dezvous.  The resort was fan­tas­tic, the pris­tine, shell strewn beaches were almost deserted and the long week­end stretched out before us like a gauzy dream wait­ing to happen.

Oh, it hap­pened all right, but it turned out to be the night­mare vaca­tion from hell.

Things started off well enough. We were lav­ishly wel­comed at our accom­mo­da­tions. We had a lovely din­ner by can­dle­light over­look­ing the ocean. We took the de riguer walk on the beach after­ward. That night we were ser­e­naded by the waves and woke up ready for adventure.

It was a bright morn­ing with not a cloud in the sky. Bike rid­ing around the island to get our sight­see­ing in was on the agenda. So, there we were tool­ing around and hav­ing a great look-see.  It was shap­ing up to be such lovely day!  Hot but totally lovely.

Luck­ily for me, I like hot weather rather than cold, but around mid­day my (ex)husband’s inter­nal tem­per­a­ture was ris­ing and he had a pretty good case of sun­burn. His face was tomato red, so we stopped for some cool water and a rest.

Spy­ing a pris­tine bed of pine straw mulch around a shady palm tree, the man decides to sit there and catch the breezes while I look at kitch for kids. Well, like I said we were totally unaware of the South’s fire ant prob­lems. He no sooner gets set­tled under that tree before he is swarmed with red imported fire ants.  I heard a howl then saw him swat­ting away, while he was try­ing to strip off his shirt.

Big mis­take. He now had a weapon to beat fire ants off his legs, but they migrated under his shorts and to his chest and neck.  I don’t know how long that attack lasted, but it felt like an eter­nity, and I was only an onlooker.  Ouch.  Although it was years later that I expe­ri­enced my own encounter with fire ants, just watch­ing him suf­fer was awful.

It was hor­ri­ble. He sus­tained so many bites that he was in total agony. Between the fire ant venom and the sun­burn there was no com­fort or rest. That was the end of the fun and the begin­ning of week­end mis­ery I will never forget.

No kisses. No hugs. No laugh­ter. For the dura­tion it was just cold baths, grumpy fights and first aid. Such a waste of a hol­i­day vaca­tion.  Had we only known about fire ants, we could have avoided the whole thing.

Fire ants are found in more places all the time and many of them are fab­u­lous vaca­tion spots. We think about get­ting shots when trav­el­ing abroad, but who thinks about out­door ene­mies in our own coun­try?  Many North­ern clime dwellers are unaware of the dan­gers of fire ants when trav­el­ing to the South.  Fire ants are never dis­cussed in the travel brochures.  The state travel bureaus don’t even warn about fire ants.  How are we sup­posed to know?

Unfor­tu­nately, igno­rance is no excuse– in the law and in fire ant behav­ior.  Fire ants are mean, have no nat­ural ene­mies here and they hide in places you might never think to look.  Despite the best efforts of land­scape pro­fes­sion­als and sci­en­tists, fire ants still find ways to worm their way into paradise.

Don’t let this hap­pen to you. You spent all that time plan­ning the per­fect trip. Now, spend a few moments and check out our arti­cles on red imported fire ants to save your­self a nasty sur­prise. Famil­iar­ize your­self with where fire ants are found and what to look for. Be fore­warned and be fore­armed. You will be glad you did.

I hope you have a truly roman­tic Valentine’s Day. May it be full of love–and free of fire ants!

Related  Fire Ant Arti­cles You May Enjoy—

Fero­cious Fire Ants— Dan­ger in the Grass

Red Imported Fire Ants—Your Landscape’s Hid­den Elec­tric Personality

Elim­i­nate Red Imported Fire Ants?

Get­ting Rid of Fire Ants—What Really Works?

How to Sus­tain­ably Con­trol Red Imported Fire Ants

What is Bioin­ten­sive Inte­grated Pest Management?

Get­ting Started with Bioin­ten­sive Inte­grated Pest Management