Question
I just purchased a house and have 100's of ant hills in the back yard. Someone told me to use a granular that will kill the ant colonies. I realize that this is a poison. My question is if we have well water is that method safe to use? Will it seap into the well water. I also have two dogs and a small child but this application would be done Now. We won't be moving in for 2 months. Is that long enough that it will be safe?

Answer
Hi Cindy;
What you put on the ground will seep into the well water.
The well water comes from the water table.
Everything put on the ground gets washed into the soil, through rain and watering, it seeps down to the water table, so what washes down there, comes up through your pumps.
Fire ants will scatter from orange oil. I am not sure if it kills them or if it just chases them away, but put a handful of chopped orange peels on top of a fire any bed, and in a few hours there is no sign of ants. Some say chopped lemon peels repels other ants. Chopped lemon peels sude keeps kitty cats from using your flower beds for litter boxes.
Chop up some orange and lemon peels an scatter them on top of the any beds.
Bet by at least the next day, the ants will be gone.
When I treated a whole yard full of fire ants, I got Epsom Salts. I bought bags about 1/2 gallon sized at Walmart for about 3 dollars each, and put orange peels in my food processor and ground them up. I scraped the peels and oil out and mixed it with the epsom salts.
I put the peels of about 2 medium oranges per bag of salts, and mixed it well, and stored it in a large glass jar overnight, mixed again, and scattered that all over the yard.
When I opened the jar of salts the next morning, that oil had mixed thoroughly,oily,  and it was very strongly scented with the orange oil.
You could put the peels of about 2 medium oranges, and 2 large or 3 mdeium lemon peels per gallon of epsom salts.
That should make a pretty potent mixture.
Be sure to store this concocton in glass, because that citrus acid will etch permanently or eat up plastic, and it will ruin stainless steel.
he first time I did this, I stored it in zip lock bags, and they were almost disolved the next morning.
If you switch to an organic program so you will have a safe enviornment for critters like toads and lizards, they will eat all the ants, fire ants included.
You will only have to put down the chopped orange peels for a couple of years, until your herd of lawn livestock builds up.

Charlotte