I have ants taking up residence in my inner cover? I have solid innercovers and have 100's of ants with eggs and what looked like sugar granuals. As I did my inspection I pored them out but assume they will be back? I couldn't see an ant trail coming up the outside so I guess they are comming through the hive. I am a beginner with 3 hives. This is my strongest hive so it must not be effecting things to much. I started with NUCS May 6th and I need to add a second deep to 2 hives tonight. I glued and stapled all my frames up last night and letting them dry before adding to hive.
I notice I have the same ants in the top of one of the other hives but only a few. Question 1 Should I put poison in? They are the tiny grease type ants so I could probably use one of those little tin inclosed poison things in the innercover.
I am also noticing lots of drone activity coming in and out of the two hives that are getting crowded outside of one frame is all that does not have comb on it. I fliped those outside frames so the comb is against the wall so hopefully the will fill the otherside.
Thank You for all the help
Jeff
The inner lid MUST have a hole in it and a 3/8 space between it and the top cover. If not, the ants will eventually kill the hive. The nest between the two lids will only grow with time. If the bees can access the 3/8 inch area above the inner lid, they will wipe out the ants.
If your hive is up on a four by four or two by six stand you can us tanglefoot on the legs of the hive stand to keep ants and mice out, this works good for me. Tanglefoot is an extremely sticky product used for mice and birds, it comes in a tube for a caulking gun.
You can just remove the inner cover for 2-3 days, it will be a little tricky getting the outer one off, but shouldn't be too bad. Or dump a bunch of cinammon on the inner cover. If there's a hole in the inner cover I just prop up the outer cover with a twig so the bees patrol the gap.
>>If your hive is up on a four by four or two by six stand you can us tanglefoot on the legs
Or put each leg of the stand inside a coffee can and fill with water. I used this method to get rid of a presitent ant colony last year. I also did a weekly inspection and brushed out all of the ants' nest that was visible.
I have one hive now for two months. I have had ants from the second day. I used the sticky stuff and it worked for about three days befor the ants found out they could have a few buds give up their life and make a path across the sticky stuff. I wanted to stop the ant invasion so I put ant spray on the legs and on the ground about 2" arround the legs. That helped for about a week. My bees do not mind the ants as far as I can see. I did find out that they are helping me in my war on the mitty mite. When I have been ant free I get over 5 mites on the bottm board when I check. When the ants are present I seldom find any mites and on occation I see the ants carting off the mites. The ants I have are the little back ones. I am now going to monitor the ant invasion and try to keep it within reason.
I have one hive now for two months. I have had ants from the second day. I used the sticky stuff and it worked for about three days befor the ants found out they could have a few buds give up their life and make a path across the sticky stuff. I wanted to stop the ant invasion so I put ant spray on the legs and on the ground about 2" arround the legs. That helped for about a week. My bees do not mind the ants as far as I can see. I did find out that they are helping me in my war on the mitty mite. When I have been ant free I get over 5 mites on the bottm board when I check. When the ants are present I seldom find any mites and on occation I see the ants carting off the mites. The ants I have are the little back ones. I am now going to monitor the ant invasion and try to keep it within reason.
we have fire ants somthing allful, just a little spil of honey will have them in a hive quiker than you can say scat.i dont us a lot of this stuff,just enough to slow em down
HI,
I don't have problems with ants,but I do with pill bugs and pincher bugs.
My hives are on a single pole/pipe stand and I just wiped grease around the poll and it stopped the problem.
For ants sprinkling salt or yellow cornmeal around the perimeter will help as the salt eats away at the ant's armor plate and kills them. Reapply after rain.
Also some herbs that will keep ants away are catnip, pennyroyal, peppermint, sage, and spearmint...
Thanks for all the great help... I think I will try the remove the inner cover for a few days trick and go from there. I have my hives on a 2x6 stand but don't have legs on it yet but that will be step 2 if removing the inner cover for a few days doesn't rid them all together. I had 3 swarm cells in one hive and 2 in the other so I cut them out. I added my second deep to all 3 hives, I put the five fresh frames in the lower and moved the new built comb to the upper hive. The bees seem to like the new space. Hopefully that will stop my swarm cells from forming...
Thanks Again for all the great help.
Jeff
To keep ants from trying to set up housekeeping on the innercover we sprinkle a few ( very few)woods ashes around the perimeter of the inner cover. Seems to work. However, we have found FIRE ANTS and SBB to be helpful in controlling mites and SHB. In fact I will be happy to send you your own personal colony of FIRE ANTS and will pay the shipping because my mama always told me we should share with those less fortunate.
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