Phorid Flies

This falls into the "on the horizon" category of potential remedies, because there's not really anything you can do right now with them. However, in the future, they might provide a way to get rid of fire ants for good.

Phorid flies are a parasitic fly that is extremely lethal to the Red Imported Fire Ant. The flies will hover over its target, a fire ant, until it finds the opportune moment to dive in and inject an egg through an opening in the ant’s hard exterior. The larva will then grow inside the ant's body, moving toward the head as it matures. In the head it slowly eats away the muscles of ant, and ultimately the ant’s head literally falls off. The flies thus decapitate their hosts and use the ant's empty head as a pupal case for their young.

This kind of fly has been have been released in several southern states. One introduction was to 12 Texan counties. Later studies found that the flies were spreading over 3 million acres at the rate of three to ten miles each year. The flies also are effective in the control of fire ants because they interfere with the ant's ability to retrieve food and mate. There are over 18 species of phorid flies, and because they are numerous and diverse they are able to attack fire ants in a variety of ways, making it unlikely fire ants will be able to adapt to them.

Hopefully one day this will lead to a permanent remedy, and you won't even have to pay for it to work! They've already been introduced in Texas and other places and are killing off fire ants as we speak. 

Sources and Useful Links::

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gilbert/research/fireants/fireant.html

http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/ENTO/Oct3105b.htm

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