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Red Harvester Ants: Pest or Ant Farm Friend?

Remember that prize-winning ant farm you had as a kid?

Well, you may not have been aware of it at the time, but you were farming red harvester ants. While these ants make nice indoor pets for your children, outside these ants can pack a powerful stinging bite when disturbed. And while they are not necessarily a pest, you don’t want these critters near your child’s playground.

How to Identify Red Harvest Ants

Characteristics of Red Harvester Ants’ Nests

• A 3-6 foot disk of bare ground around their nest entrance. The ants will eat any new vegetation that tries to grow. This disk is hard to see in desert areas.
• Entrance is covered at night by gravel or twigs to stop intruders.
• Entrance hole will be level with the ground. Unlike other ants, there is no hill that leads to the entrance. This can make the entrance hard to see.
• 3-5 paths through grass that look like arms extending from the entrance.

Click on this link to see a photograph of a red harvester ant nest.

Life Cycle

The mating males and females have wings that they use to fly, usually after a period of rain, to find another mate. This is called a mating swarm.

Males die shortly after mating. Females fly until they find the perfect place to nest (you may not agree with the queen’s perfect place, but, after all, you and the ants have different priorities).

After she finds a place to nest, the queen will drop her wings and dig a burrow where she lays her eggs. Larvae hatch from the eggs and change during a series of stages. Larvae are white, legless, and have a small head. The larvae form cocoons and transform into worker ants. These workers begin caring for other developing ants, expanding the nest, and foraging for food.

Food

Red harvester ants eat seeds as their main diet, but they will also eat dead insects if they come across them. The worker ants go out and collect seeds to bring back to the nest for the colony to eat and store.

Are Red Harvester Ants Aggressive?

No, these ants are not aggressive. You practically have to force them to bite you, but they will bite if they feel threatened. The bite of the red harvester ant is extremely painful and stinging. The effects of a bite can travel along your lymph node channels and become a serious medical problem, so keep alert. Just because these ants aren’t aggressive doesn’t mean they won’t bite and bite hard.

Management

For the most part, these ants are not considered a pest. If their nest is not in a high traffic area, then maybe you should consider doing nothing to control the ants. This is particularly good advice if you live in Texas where the Texas horned lizard lives, as red harvest ants are a major source of food for these rapidly disappearing lizards.

In some cases where children are involved, doing nothing is not an option. So, if you’re in that boat, try mowing or disking (turning and loosening the soil) around the nest. This may get rid of the ants without having to use any insecticide. However, this will not make the red harvester ant happy, and you and anyone near the nest are at great risk for getting bitten.

If the mowing or disking isn’t enough, you can always use an ant pesticide. Since there is no red-harvester-ant-specific pesticide, any pesticide that kills ants should do the trick. You can always use this in combination with mowing and disking.

An Organic Way of Getting Rid of Red Harvester Ants

Trying to go green and kill ants safely? Check out EcoSMART’s organic pesticides. Unlike other insecticides, EcoSMART uses all natural plant oils to kill insects fast without harming your children or pets. For red harvester ants, it’s best to use EcoSMART Ant and Roach killer to get rid of the ants organically.

Christine Hellberg