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Author Topic: Black Ants  (Read 4077 times)

Offline AllenF

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Black Ants
« on: May 29, 2010, 09:51:16 pm »
So I took a little time to check some nucs today between the rain showers, (ya, I got hit right below the knee) and one was cleaned out.  These nucs came from some queen castle frames I had going.  They were transfered last weekend and had a gallon of feed in each nuc.  Now I have had bees leave nucs before or get robbed out, but this one lost everything, brood, eggs, honey, everything.   There were just 4 or 5 bees and 4 or 5 of those big black carpenter ant in there.   Can those carpenter ants eat the bee young?  I think they got robbed out by other bees, but where did the young go?    Should I worry about the other young nucs there?  I thought about hornets, but I haven't seen many this year.

Offline wd

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Re: Black Ants
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2010, 02:34:59 pm »
I haven't had a problem with carpenter ants, as far as I know they don't eat brood, eggs and all, at least that's what others have said in my searches thus far. On one location I have, the first year I had an instant problem. I removed the dry sugar feed, it didn't help at all. I now have some there but I moved them about 30 feet. They're sitting on pallets, No problems yet. For me, once they started it was hard to get them stop.

In another location I found some dead in one hive with a boardman feeder / sugar syrup but they left everything else alone. That hive is 10 deep frames of bees thick. I'm not exactly sure what name these have but I've seen these guys cleaning out cells in  a few of my hives in the past. They are the ones that I can depend on.




Offline likes2grill

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Re: Black Ants
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2010, 02:49:52 pm »
So I took a little time to check some nucs today between the rain showers, (ya, I got hit right below the knee) and one was cleaned out.  These nucs came from some queen castle frames I had going.  They were transfered last weekend and had a gallon of feed in each nuc.  Now I have had bees leave nucs before or get robbed out, but this one lost everything, brood, eggs, honey, everything.   There were just 4 or 5 bees and 4 or 5 of those big black carpenter ant in there.   Can those carpenter ants eat the bee young?  I think they got robbed out by other bees, but where did the young go?    Should I worry about the other young nucs there?  I thought about hornets, but I haven't seen many this year.

I lost 8 hives a few summers ago to carpenter ants. These where full strong hives too. Wiped them completely out nothing left but comb and a bunch of dead bees everywhere.

Offline wd

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Re: Black Ants
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2010, 04:20:27 pm »
I'll add to the watch list. I wonder why they pick out some hives and leave others alone?

Offline Thymaridas

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Re: Black Ants
« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2010, 11:54:36 pm »
Thank goodness for political campaigns and all of those signs.

Here is something I use that seems to work on ants and hive beetles. I cut those plastic political signs into 4 inch squares seal one end with Crisco knock off and fill the little slots with borax and a touch of sugar then mount those inside of the bottom board and near the legs coming up to the hive. The bees can't get to the borax but the ants and beetles can.

Offline AllenF

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Re: Black Ants
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2010, 09:42:38 pm »
Last year, I did have a nest of the big black ants (about half the size of that dime) move into a hive, but they were on top of the inner cover, and i had a strong hive under them.  I would dump them out on the ground every couple of weeks and they would move back in, thousands of ants along with eggs.   I can't remember how I killed them now, I dumped them into something one day, a bucket of something, and no more ants.   But I don't think the ants bothered the bees, or the bees ran the ants out from above the inner cover. 

 

anything