ants on the attack

[dp]

I thought I had seen everything until this evening.Usually I have a problem with ants.I have a cardboard tray placed under the sbb.A v-mite had fallen onto the tray and was being attacked by a ant. It was a battle the mite was loseing. I also seen a wax moth larve that was also being attacked by a ant.I was concerned that the ants were going into the hive. After an inspection I found out that the ants were only after what was falling onto the tray. Has anybody else ever seen or heard of this?

[WineMan]

The catch trays under my screens are sprayed with aerosal cooking oil and are attracting the ants and the darn ants are carrying everything away. Now I cant tell if any mites are falling or not!!!!

[dcross]

Isn't there a theory that hives near fire ant hills do really well? If you can work them, that is.

[5TR-Apiary]

Have you tried the sticky board? It might be sticky enough to catch the ants also???

[Michael Bush]

Hmmm... Killing mites. Killing wax moth larvae. Tell me again why you want to get rid of the ants?

[db_land]

I'm finding wax moth cacoons below the SBB screen (where the bees can't reach them). Where are the ants when you need them! Anyone else having problems with SBBs ? What can be done about it ?

[Russ]

I keep my hives on old roofing tin. Helps keep the weeds and grass down.

[BULLSEYE BILL]

I found that the big black ants had chewed a crawl space inbetween the top cover and the rim of the top feeder. They had gnawed out a valley to crawl through by chewing out the wood. When I opened it up there were about a hundred ants in the dry feeder.

Getting Ateup

[BILLY BOB]

I use to put out fire ant killer. About two years ago I found that the fire ants liked the wax moth larva, and small hive beatle larva. Now I have some of you telling me the they like mites too!!!! Oh! Joy! Joy! Joy!

I would like to say, I have never had a problem with fire ants in the hive...Well every now and then they get between the inner cover and the outer cover and rase brood. At first it was hard to just let the ants go, but I haven't had any problems with any other bugs.

I keep my hives about 18 inches off the ground. I have SBB that stay open year around. The winter temps here may drop down to the teens for one or two weeks out of the winter, with the occasional realy cold day, mabe single didgets.

BB

[dp]

The ants that I have seen look to be army ants. That explains why yesterday I saw another ant carrying off another mite between it's jaws. Being army ants, that may explain why they prefer the live mites. They must like a battle.

[usahq]

Sometimes placing a piece of walnut tree branch between the inner cover and telescoping cover helps to keep ants out of there.

[Daisy]

Nothing grows under the black walnut tree. I wonder why black walnut keeps the ants out, or what it might do if anything to bees, or against mites, even. Curious.

[Daisy]

usahg

I reread my post to you and it didn't come out quit right.

I didn't mean to imply that walnut would hurt bees, I had the dang mites on my mind when I wrote that, and was wondering if black walnut would repel mites in anyway that could be helpful for the bees.

That's what I meant...

[dcross]

Stuffing a dog bed with walnut leaves prevents fleas.