Ants In Hive

[asprince]

Greg, are you serious?

I have black walnut trees and I have lots of ants at times.....go figure. I can't wait to try this.

Steve

[Cindi]

If you have a black walnut tree near by strip some leaves off a branch and put them on top of the inner cover under the outer cover. An older beekeep told me this and it has worked for me.

Greg, oooooh, integrated pest management......this sounds like a wonderful thing.  We have a horrible thing with earwigs in our part of the woods.  The earwigs, I have heard do not bother the colonies. I think this is a bunch of crap.  I have seen the earwigs be right inside the cells on the outside frames in a colony.  Places where the bees do not police as heavily.   I know that they are having a great time in there, because these earwigs are rather fat and lazy, I can catch them really easily. 

We don't have issues with ants here, but I am forever in a fight with earwigs.  Beautiful day, life, health.  Cindi

[Brian D. Bray]

I just have to say this:  For years I've had ants in my beehives when I used inner covers and telescopic tops, much less so when using migratory tops (there's a hint of a solution there).  Then either migratory tops or top entrances I had even less.  Along came the Screened bottom board and I had even less.  I now use bottomless beehives with a small top entrance and don't find ants in my hives at all anymore.  Now the ants wait at the base of the hive stands and harvest the debre that falls out of the hive.

I might add that in all those years I had ants in the hive, I never once noticed them to be more than an irritation to the beekeeper, they didn't seem to affect the bees as much as mites, Small Hive Beetles, or Wax Moths.  In other words I consider the concern over ants way over blow and opted to ignore their existance years ago. 

One exception was if the ants built a hill under the hive, then I did something because the ant hill could destablize the hive and cause it to fall over.

[TimV]

I might add that in all those years I had ants in the hive, I never once noticed them to be more than an irritation to the beekeeper, they didn't seem to affect the bees as much as mites, Small Hive Beetles, or Wax Moths.  In other words I consider the concern over ants way over blow and opted to ignore their existance years ago.

It depends on where you are. If you have Argentine ants (the little black ones) they are a bigger killer of hives out here then mites and wax moths combined. They are probably the number one killer of beehives.

The oil trick can work, and grease etc.. but when wind blows leaves around the ants will still get in.

One thing that SOMETIMES works is mixing one third Borax with honey and putting a couple tablespoons in a container. Any sort will do, like a plastic water bottle. Prick little holes on one side and put it under or around the hive with the holes on the ground. The ants will harvest from the mixture and you will usually be able to knock down a small to medium problem with this method. With bigger problems it won't work, though.

[orvette1]

I live in Honolulu. We have all types of bugs both good and bad. Ants in a hive are bad.  What I did to solve this problem is this. Since I have to worry about termites here I used fake wood and built a stand for the hive.  It is just four uprights with some cross slats for stability.  Then I use this stuff called tangle foot.  You can buy it at the garden section of most large stores.  It is made to keep crawling bugs from getting up the leg.  It works great! The bees stay away because it is on the legs and they don't go that low. You don't have to use fake wood, you can use anything to build the stand.  This stuff keeps the ants out for most of the year.  If the tangle foot gets dirty you just scrape it off and put more.  I haven't had any problems since I started using it.

[SlickMick]

Hi Anket, Check the post I made today under fireants http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,20550.0.html

Mick