Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DISEASE & PEST CONTROL => Topic started by: AliciaH on June 24, 2010, 06:15:20 pm
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I have two hives being bothered by ants. The primary problem is that the ants are not going after the sugar syrup, they are actively attacking the bees! There is ant bait pellets on the ground around the hives and that seems to have reduced the onslaught somewhat, but the ants are still after the bees. I have also added bait traps that use liquid (the store-bought kind).
I tried searching for solutions both on this site and others but many ant bait solutions are based on the ants loving sweet stuff. These ants are bypassing the baits used so far and are just going directly for the bees.
I noticed that Borax was mentioned quite a bit. Could I sprinkle straight Borax on the ground around the hives? Would that stop the ants without bothering the bees?
Anybody have any ideas? Both hives are very small; they were doing okay before this but really don't have the numbers to defend and continue building at the same time. I fear that if the ants make another major attack like they did the first day, I'll lose both groups.
Thanks for whatever help you might give!
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try cinnamon -- they *hate* the stuff. just sprinkle some around the areas they are accessing the hive. works great.
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i tracked them down last night and applied a controlled burn with a propane torch. since they follow an established trail the remaining ants will have to find the hive on their own. i concreted in a four leg pedestal for my hives and i regret not mounting them on a single round metal post. maybe i'll do that in the early fall.
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lotsobees: I've tried cinnamon in the past without much luck. But at the time, the ants were after the sugar water. Maybe these ants will be more deterred by the cinnamon. It's worth a shot, thanks for the reminder!
jgaito: I tried to track the ants back to their colony, but they are coming from the woods so no luck. Would have been nice to eliminate them from the source, though!
I've read about hives on legs that were placed in buckets of water. I'm going to play with that idea a bit for future problems. These two hives are on bricks, so am thinking more along the idea of painting the bricks with something. What, though, I haven't figured out yet, especially since I don't want the bees on it.
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Paint grease or Vaseline on your bricks (blocks?). They won't cross it.
Scott
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Scott: Just need to clarify about the grease. You mean the kind you use to lubricate engines?
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What's normally referred to as "axle grease".
Scott
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one part borax, one part water, one part grape jelly...
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Just want to say, "THANK YOU!" to everyone for your wonderful suggestions! I was truly at a loss when it was apparant that the ants wanted the bees and not the syrup.
What I ended up doing was taking a piece of plywood and painting one entire side with Vaseline. I put the Vaseline side-down on the bricks. As for the bricks, I ended up painting a stripe around those with something I found in my barn - RainMaker. It's a substance used to condition horses' hooves, but includes ingrediants like white petrolatum, pine tar, and other sticky stuff.
Today is cloudy and cool and there are no ants, but on the next sunny day I have no doubt that they will be back. I'll be sure to let you all know how this works out.
Thanks, again!
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Will the borax also help with cockroaches?
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I agree with Hardwood's suggestion. I have painted the blocks or bricks with axle grease. After the last area political election I grabbed some of the discarded political signs and cut them a bit larger than the cinder blocks then sandwiched them between 2 blocks. I smeared grease on 1 side of the sign facing down and the ant problems went away. Cheap & easy!
GW