Fire Ants revistited....

[cphilip]

I just spent some time reading old posts on Ants. Very wide variety of takes on the. Friend, Foe,... nusance... Seems to depend on the experience of the Beek.

Reason I bring this up is I have been carefully watching about them for a good while now. Have not had reason to concern over them. I frequently bait thier little nests when I find them anyway. Always have. And up until now they have never presented a bee keeping problem.

But now I have reason to watch closer because I am currently working up a Nuc thats just been moved both in location and in box. Its been moved to a 8 frame deep, which is full of brood and filled frames. Its not a new starter Nuc. Its one that was coverted from a already two Five frame deeps Nuc and already fairly populated. Pretty big actually.

So when we moved it into the one 8 Frame deep I then stuck a Medium super on top of that and at the time all I had to put in it was Pierco Plastic frames and its waxed plastic foundation. So on advice from many... it was suggested to feed them to get them to draw comb on that. But its a bad time of the year for Sugar water to be laying about. So that bring me to this point.

The hive was moved into place Saturday night. And allowed to orient and all that through Monday. However those two days were rainy but they did get chances to fly and were proceeding to do quite well. Monday night I started feeding them a 1:1 with an entrance feeder. Put on 1 quart. To date they have drained about 3/4's of that. In two days. So I start watching them real close after that of course. And sure enough tonight, for the first time and now after two days on, I see the first sign of Ants. I think they are fire ants. Probably are. Not a ton. Like 10 or so moving about the glass jar and on the surface of the slab the Hive sits on.

So I am wondering if its best not to feed them every day. Maybe break it up so the ants don't get a real bead on it as a food source. Or best to let them just get what they want. I do know the bees are finding something. There is a flow but its hard to say what it is. Sourwood is blooming now. Just not sure how much is around here. But its obvious they bringing in pollen and feeding on something.

I did sprinkle fire ant bait (well I call it bait but its the stuff you broadcast or put right on the mounds) around this area before I moved this hive into place. And then tonight I did it again. Around the base and around the ground for a good ways around the hive. Hopefully did not get too much dust blow up on the bees. That concerns me some. But have heard others say its not that toxic to bees. But I don't know.

So to nip this in the bud before it develops further I seek advice.

Anyway... here is the areas of concern I would like adressed.

1) would you feed on a while? If so how long would you feed on to make a strong small colony prepare Peirco? and if you feed on, would you break it up in intervals to confuse the Ants? Or would it confuse the Bees more than the ants?

2) Whats been the observation of Fire ants baits/mound treatments effects on Bees. Assuming some incidental accidental exposure to minute amounts that might drift over during application?

or should I take a Valium and think about taking up another :D hobby that things can't die in the process?

[ June 28, 2006, 09:24 PM: Message edited by: cphilip ]

[Beemaninsa]

I don't know for sure, but I think fire ants do not eat sugar, I think they are meat eaters. I have had little problem with ants except they don't like you bringing them in to CA. I find Amdro and Extinguish work well against fire ants.

[tecumseh]

my experience is that fire ants seem to multiply quite rapidly after a rain. most time after some dry spell I notice that with a decent rain the fire ant equivalent of swarming seems to be the natural end results.

I have very little problem with the fire ants in regards to active hives. part of this may be that I poison the little buggers which mound within a short distance of the hives and I keep most of my hives on stands. one of the better know beekeeper a bit south of me told me directly that in his mind the fire ant is his friend...and this may well be true. I have had more than a bit of problem in regards to fireants and rearing nucs. the weak newbees seem to require a bit more protection until their population is adequate for them to protect themselves.

good luck and good season....

[Sharkey]

Well.............

The advice I got a few years ago at a workshop was that it is probably a good thing, over all, to have the fireants near the hive. The exception being that they will, of course, attack the beek. ;)

The reasoning was that when mites or SHB larva or whatever, fall to the ground, those little critters sure do like to eat them !

Sounded reasaonable to me, so I pretty much leave the ants alone as long as we tolerate each other within reason. Again, there is an exception.... if they are NOT near my hives, I kill 'em, cause they are NOT going to be of ANY benefit to me OR my hives ! :D

Just my two bits. :cool:

[JP]

Cphilip, you mention that you are concerned about the "dust" from the fire ant product. If it is truly a dust you are using around your hives, DON'T! Dusts can get airborne easily and will kill some bees. Use a product like Amdro, directly on the fire ant mounds and a product called Talstar pl for broadcast applications and on the mounds. Amdro is a bait, Talstar pl is a synthetic pyrethroid, it is a repellant, that lasts for about 3 months. Of course it is wise to find out first what type of ant or ants you are dealing with before you treat. Good luck! ps,You can private message me if you like to discuss further.

[cphilip]

Its not a dust per say.... its a granual. But inevitably it does form some dusty substrate no matter what. When I toss it I can see a small amount of dust come off of it. So no matter what its intent it breaks apart in the bag and forms a bit of dust.

And yes.... they indeed do come forth after a rain. I see population explosions of them related to that.

I cannot be certain these few that I saw were fire ants. I was actually walking the yard baiting the known nests when I passed by the hive and decided to observe a few minutes. They were small like fire Ants. And appeared redish in color. But it was near dark when I spotted them. They are gone this morning. So I guess I got them or they are nocturnal or something.

Anyone care to comment on the feeding parts of the question?

[Ross]

I have never seen a fireant in an active hive. They will cleanup a deadout pretty quickly and I seldom have a problem with wax moths because they like to eat the larva. Other types of ants can be a real nuisance when trying to feed. The inverted cans or jars seem to do the best against these as they allow little access that is not protected by bees.

[ June 29, 2006, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: Ross ]

[cphilip]

Quoting Ross "The inverted cans or jars seem to do the best against these as they allow little access that is not protected by bees."

Thats the style feeding I am doing. If you meant by that the inverted Jar entrance feeders. The only way I see for them to get in there is to go around and go through the front which is inside the hive. However I observed a few of them crawling around on the Glass jar outside. Perhaps I accidently left a trace of sugar on the outside? I will be a bit more careful to clean that off before placing a new jar.

Wonder how long its going to take them to pull that Foundation so I can quit? Speculation I know but any reference point would be helpful.

[Ross]

Mine are all top feeders over a hole in the top. My standard now is 2 gallon plastic paint buckets (new) with several 1/16" holes drilled in the lids. The only access to the syrup is inside the top of the hive where the bees are feeding. The ants cleanup any spills pretty quick, but they don't go inside.

[Owen]

I do not have Fire ants but I have been using the little black or brown ants to manage my mite control program. They seem to keep my SBB clean of any mites. When I want to check on the drop rare of the Mites, I have to put cooking oil on the board to keep them from carting the mites off so I can count them.

When I feed the ants come running but after I take the feeder off most of them seem to go home.

I spray the ants arround the house but leave them be in the garden and flower beds.

[Owen]

I do not have Fire ants but I have been using the little black or brown ants to manage my mite control program. They seem to keep my SBB clean of any mites. When I want to check on the drop rare of the Mites, I have to put cooking oil on the board to keep them from carting the mites off so I can count them.

When I feed the ants come running but after I take the feeder off most of them seem to go home.

I spray the ants arround the house but leave them be in the garden and flower beds.

Owen

[FordGuy]

I'm near clemson sc, just a ride south of you. my ant situation: if any living creature hits the ground below the hive it is eaten where it fell. I can watch the ground below and see ants move.

Good news: when a SHB larvae hits the ground, it is eaten where it fell. When I put supers on the ground, I have also noticed that ants clean them up, and that the ants (I suspect) eat moth larvae in teh comb.

[Apuuli]

I have a plastic basin under the sbb to collect all sorts of interesting debris. At one point a few shb larvae were in there and before I could clean it out and empty it, the fire ants carted all of them away (I watched).

The native habitat of fire ants is along rivers. When the rivers flood the ants come to the surface and raft away. They do the same thing here, moving up away from the rising ground water.

I used to try to Amdro them to death every year but they always come back in the same density as when I don't try to kill them and now seeing as how they help my bees...

I did spill some honey the other week and attracted the attention of another type of ant, which I was a little concerned about, but after a couple of days they stopped messing with the hive.

[tecumseh]

apuuli sezs:
The native habitat of fire ants is along rivers. When the rivers flood the ants come to the surface and raft away. They do the same thing here, moving up away from the rising ground water.

tecumseh replies:
quite interesting tidbit apuuli. can I quote you on this?

[Apuuli]

You sure can quote me on it, but I'm not an entomologist (nor do I play one on tv) so if you're going to be doing any quoting you should probably quote someone in the biz.

"The Fire Ants" by Walter R. Tschinkel is supposed to be THE book for them, but he's from FSU so I wouldn't trust it farther than I could throw that massive tome. ;)

[mac]

Here in FSU country we have a very special organic method of eliminating fire ants. It's called Armadillo. I know I know they roto till the yard, tear up the garden and whatnot, but the most interesting thing I have noticed is they destroy fire ant mounds. That’s right they dig it up and go for the ant larva. They might come back to it two or three times. When finished, the ants seem to move to someplace else. If only we could get someone at IFAS to come up with a way to attach 3or 4 of these hard shelld beasts to a handle so we could control the roto tilling. :D

[tecumseh]

mac sezs:
Here in FSU country

tecumseh replies:
yea, yea.... like us gators are gonna believe that...

now on the other hand if in some form or fashion apuuli could combine some dna of his wild pigs with the armadillo dna then we might have a winner.

[Velbert]

I was using the mine nuc to introduce some virgin Queens the 4 frame minies had only foundation strips,I put about a 1/2 pint of feed in the inside feeder a caged virgin Queen no attendents placed her on the bottom of the MH. went back in about 4 days to check to see if they excepeted the virgins i pulled out the frames to get to the Queen cage they were fire ants in the bottom they were not eating the candy in the q cage so i opened the cage and all that was left was part of the Queens head
The fire ants got in through the vent holes in the bottom.


I have also seen them go for the sweets, feed(syrup) or the candy in the cages

I think it all depends what they are needing sweet or protien

[3pepper]

the easiest organic way to kill the fire ant colony is to pour boiling water into the center of the ant mound . i use a regular tea kettle full of water , bring it to a hard boil and carry it outside and pour slowely into the center of the mound . the water will cut a hole 3 feet deep almost instantly . pour all the water nonstop . the steam will rise and kill all the ants .
i have 16 acres and used a camp stove to heat the water and treated a dozen or so mounds . it took several years to reach the population density i had before treating them this way . and i felt i wasen't poisoning my land

[Sharkey]

Well..............

3pepper, that sounds like a GREAT way to take care of problem hills !! I'll try that. ;)

[notaclue]

I have three hives that the ants are not a problem. The fourth is weak after SHB and is on the road to recovery. I'm feeding the weak one and piss ants were getting in to the top feeder. They were and are staying away from the SBB and entrance and came in under the inner and telescoping cover. Not any more. I fell back on what I tried last year and used earlier this year when I first installed three packages. I pulled out the bottle of mineral oil and with my finger smeared a barrier line around the hive body and under the outer cover. All ants stay away now, even the big red ants and larger black ants. The FGMO was still one yesterday when I checked the feeder level...two and a half weeks later.

I Amdro fire ants as I have no tolerance for them since I was stationed in south Georgia. Saw too many kids, older folks and critters hurt and hospitalized by these things.

Good Luck,
David

[ July 02, 2006, 02:05 PM: Message edited by: notaclue ]