Fire ants do not eat solid food. They are omnivorous. Fire ants often drink sweet liquid called honeydew. Fire ants also eat insects and other fire ants. They prefer crickets, mealworms, sugar water, sweets, protein, oil, seeds, plants, insects, carbohydrates (ex. Honeydew, plant exudates, sugars, syrups), proteins, (ex. Insects, meat), and liquids (ex. grease, lard, oils from seeds). During spring and summer, when there is plenty food, they need more protein. They only eat liquid food, so they place the solid food on a depression in front of the mouth on the oldest larvae and that ant regurgitates digestive proteins onto the food. Once it’s turned into liquid, the ant sucks up the protein and regurgitates it to the workers, who pass it on to the rest of the colony.

A fire ant will travel over 100 feet from the nest just to get food for the colony. They can search during day or night, usually when air temperatures are between 70 degrees and 90 degrees. When they find a lot of food, they get more worker ants to come help him get the food back to the colony. Liquid foods are ingested at the place that they found the food, and stored within the ants until they regurgitate it to other ants in the colony. Liquids from solid foods are extracted at the source, or carried back as solid particles. Large solids might be cut into smaller sizes so they can carry them back to the colony.