DATE: 11/29/2005

CONTACT: Tim Davis, (803) 635-4722; tdvs@clemson.edu

WRITER: Tom Lollis, (803) 284-3343, ext. 241; tlollis@clemson.edu

Clemson experts baffle fire ants that try to invade bluebird boxes

COLUMBIA – Clemson University scientists at the Sandhill Research and Education Center have figured out a way to prevent the Red Imported Fire Ant from invading bluebird nestboxes to attack the hatchlings.

Over the last four years, up to 16 percent of the bluebird boxes at the Sandhill REC were being decimated by fire ants, according to Tim Davis, Clemson Extension county agent and specialist for the Areawide Imported Fire Ant Program.

One day he and Mac Horton, resident director at Sandhill and former fire ant specialist, and Lex Glover, wildlife biologist with the Department of Natural Resources were discussing the problem during a hallway conversation.

“The result was a baffle made from the top third of a one-liter plastic drink bottle,” said Davis . “We slip the pole that supports the bluebird box through the hole in the top, tape the baffle to the pole with electrical tape and then paint the inside of the baffle with Fluon, a super slippery substance.”

Fluon is so slippery that the ants can’t get traction. They fall right off, never making it to the outside of the baffle.

“We’ve put baffles on more than 40 boxes in the last two years and have yet to have fire ant predation on a single box,” said Davis . Unprotected boxes in the study continued to see fire ant predation at the usual pre-study levels.

The baffle strategy also works when the inside of the drink bottle is coated with Tanglefoot, a super sticky substance. It’s a modern version of the adhesive once used on flypaper. The ants step in the Tanglefoot and get stuck forever.

Nichole Bennett, a freshman biological sciences major at Clemson, conducted some laboratory tests this summer while a student intern that demonstrated that the baffle works well even without a protective coating.

This setup, however, has not been tested in the field.

Bennett presented data on the baffle at the S.C. Entomological Society meeting in October and won the undergraduate presentation award.

If a homeowner wants to protect some bluebird nestboxes from ants, Davis suggests using Tanglefoot. It’s a lot cheaper than fluon and may be found at many garden supply centers and hardware stores as well as on the Internet.

“It’s important to make certain you have no gaps in the electrical tape that would let ants bypass the baffle,” said Davis .

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