Robert and Teresa Butcher ask if anyone knows of a good non chemical way of
keeping stinking little ants out of their beehive(s).
 
First, I would try to figure out what kind of ants I had.  Little is a relative
term.  In the South, fire ants are not attracted so much to sugar as they are
to protein and moisture. so they will generally be in a hive to eat bees and
brood, eggs and pollen, but will go to nectar or moisture.  Other ants,
including Argentine ants in Southern California, like sweets and so would go
for the honey.  I think Carpenter ants are also insectivorous, so would most
likely be going for bees, brood and pollen.  Any way, first figure out what
kind of ants you have (if you can) and then your strategy might vary.  A couple
of "non-chemical" ways to keep ants out of hives would be to put the hive on
a stand with legs and set the legs in cans, then put sand in the cans about
half full, and finally pour some old motor oil in to soak the sand.  Ants will
normally not cross this barrier.  I have not tried it personally, but have
talked to others who have and they say it works well.  Another thing to try
might be to have your stand with legs and put some tanglefoot around on the
legs to create a barrier that the ants would not cross.
 
The next method I'll mention is "marginally" chemical, but you might be willing
to rationalize it because of the application method.  Boric acid mixed into
something like apple mint jelly acts as a stomach poison on ants that like
sweets (probably most other insects that would eat it too).  I'd want to create a setup where bees could not get to it, and put out some apple mint jelly with
boric acid stirred into it until it dissolved (the exact proportion is
probably not too important, but since the insects do not recognize it as a
poison and eat it freely, probably the more the better--maybe half and half),
then put it where you see the trail of ants so they will find it and eat it.
They will take it back to their nest and it will kill the queen (or queens if
there are multiple queens) and the entire nest.  This is a neat trick to get
rid of Pharoah ants inside of walls of buildings too.
 
Now if it were fire ants, I would put down a bait such as Amdro that the ants
would again collect and take back to their nest and kill the queen.  I have
never seen bees interested in Amdro (admittedly it is chemical), but it is not
a spray, and if you put it on the ground around the perimeter of the hive,
then none at all should enter the hive.  This works for fire ants, and possibly
carpenter ants--anyway it works for ants that will "take the bait."  I hope
some of these ideas might work for you.  They are the things I would try.
There may be others that would work, but these are the ones I am familiar with.
Good luck and best wishes.
 
Layne Westover
College Station, Texas