Fire ants adapted to cold-weather march through north Georgia

ALBANY - For years, experts predicted fire ants couldn&#39;t tolerate frosty winters in the north Georgia mountains. Well, the aggressive, fast-breeding South American pests have defied predictions. <br> <br> Fire ants have now spread to all of Georgia&#39;s 159 counties and a new type discovered in the Rome area seems to be especially adept at hunkering deep in the ground to escape the cold. <br> <br> With no natural enemies outside of South America, fire ants have spread about 275 million acres in the past 80 years, mostly in the Southeast. <br> <br> Before the discovery of fire ants in northwest Georgia&#39;s Floyd County, scientists had assumed they would not be able to survive in the northern third of the state. <br> <br> But a Floyd County extension agent discovered fire ants in 1985. Then a U.S. Department of Agriculture Laboratory determined they were hybrids a cross between reds and blacks. <br> <br> In 1998, there had still been no reports of fire ants in the mountainous Towns, Rabun, Habersham, Union and Lumpkin counties. But now they have been seen in every county. <br> <br> There is no reliable way to eradicate fire ants, even though Americans spend millions of dollars a year on chemicals for temporary control. <br> <br> One fire ant colony can contain between a-hundred-thousand and 300,000 worker ants and each colony produces several hundred queens every summer.

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