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The Case of the Invincible Ant
By Jesse Nugent | December 27, 2007
Table of contents for The Pest Detective
- The Case of the Leaking Termites
- FATAL ATTRACTION
- The Case Of Flying Royalty
- The Case of the Invincible Ant
- The Case of the Clueless Client
I looked out the window through the horrible Houston summer heat and wondered why I wanted this time to come every year. This year was not only hot but a drought had gripped the region for the last 8 months. I got my answer as the phone rang, pulling me back to reality. The truth was this time of year you never knew what was going to be on the other end of the line, sort of like fishing.
Hunter Pest Control, We Aim to Please and Shoot to Kill, How may …Well get out here and shoot and kill these *%#!&@ ants.
Before I could begin asking questions the tortured voice on the other end of the phone was pouring out his story of pain and suffering. Tales of countless trips to the hardware store to buy ant potions, elixirs, panaceas of all sorts but to no avail. The ants seemed to be enjoying and thriving on them. I knew better than to try to ask any pertinent questions, he obviously needed to vent his frustrations and I sat and made the appropriate sounds where appropriate.
“Oh no, really, Hmmm, is that so, well I never, What happened then, you don’t say, you must be a saint, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh”, and my personal favorite “Oh My Lordy!”
I waited for him to pause between tales of ant horror and quickly
asked. “Who is this?”
My straight to the point approach worked, it seemed to snap him into business mode instead of victim mode where he was wallowing.
“This is Bob, from School in the Woods Church and School.” He waited in silence, like a pilot back from a raid, being debriefed.
“Bob, if the ants aren’t on the playground and no one is getting stung, what’s the problem?”
I could hear the pain and frustration in his voice as he moaned. “The ants are in the office and we’re getting stung. My secretary is terribly allergic, she’s all swollen up, she looks like a basketball with arms.”
“O.K. Bob, stay calm, this sounds like a job for Jesse Nugent, Pest Detective! I’ll be right over.”
Driving over to school in the Woods I visualized the layout. It was a sprawling complex of buildings on a ten acre campus. I knew from his description of the fire like stings that the culprit was the Imported Fire Ant. These bad boys had come up from South America in the late fifties on a load of wood bound for Gulfport, Mississippi. They had since spread throughout the South and had proven so resistant to any known control methods that the entomologists at Texas A&M had given them the new Latin prename of Invictus which means invincible. It seems that every time the scientists came up with a way to kill the fire ant colonies, the ants would just adapt and continue on. It was with the word invincible, echoing in my mind that I walked into the School In The Woods business office.
I tried not to look in the direction of his secretary Bonnie or BonBon as she was known, both her nickname and her favorite snack. Bob didn’t give me any time for idle thoughts of Bonnie’s food fetishes, he grabbed me by the elbow and drug me over to the corner of his office, pointed down at the carpet and hissed, “There they are, Shoot to Kill, Now!”
One glance confirmed that they were fire ants, no need to let one sting me, these were the real deal. But how and why?
Fire ants were not structure dwelling ants, they lived in the soil and ate anything and everything. But what were they doing inside? As I looked closer I noticed that several of the workers were carrying white objects, and there were small piles of dirt under and around the baseboards.
Invincible! Invincible! They adapt and conquer. Adapt to what? My mind reeled with the impossibility of finding a fire ant colony inside a building.
Why, what could they possibly want inside? There was no food, how were they getting in, what were those white objects?
Suddenly the truth hit me like a clap of thunder, something which I hadn’t heard in months.
The ants were adapting to the severe drought we were having, they were living under the buildings concrete slab, where it was continually moist and cool. The white objects were the Fire Ant queen’s larvae and eggs; she had moved the brood into the building where it was more hospitable. For an insect that came from the South American jungles, this must have seemed like paradise.
They were coming in through the cold joints in the buildings slab, bringing dirt up with them and packing it under the carpet, claiming the offices as their territory. Anyone in their territory, including BonBon, were fair game for their fire like stings.
Upon further investigation a large stash of half eaten candy bars and sweets were found in Bonnie’s desk. No wonder she was being stung, the ants saw her as a major threat to the new food source they had discovered in their new home.
I called my trusty sidekick, Nick and told him to bring some Fenoxycarb, an insect growth regulator which caused the Queen to lay eggs which developed into Queens only, soon there were thousands of Chiefs and almost no indians to care for them. Since the indians,(workers) weren’t being replaced they soon died from the monumental task of trying to feed and care for all the royalty, and since the royalty can’t live without the workers, they soon died off as well. Within a few days the stinging stopped and within a few weeks there were no Fire Ants to be found anywhere.
Bob called soon after and said, “I can’t thank you enough, and Bonnie wants to thank you personally.”
No Bob I said, even Pest Detectives have to draw the line somewhere.
Besides, this was just another successful caper for Jesse Nugent, Pest Detective.
Topics: Pest Control |