Hi Lionel,

you say "Ants are a real pest around anything sweet" ...  and yes that is the case.  

I have found how they behave depends on the type of ant.  Large ants seem to travel to the hive from elsewhere.  Really small ants move in ... any crack in the woodwork seems to be good enough.

Last year I put some metal trays under the hive stands and then filled up the trays with water.  Some say this works well.  We found that it stopped ants from walking up the stand legs but it did not stop the ants.  The affected hive(s) was under a large fruit tree.  What appears to have happened is that the ants dropped off the branches onto the hive and in they went.  I could not figure this out though since there was no apparent way out and they were large black ants and should go back to the nest.

The solution I took was to move the hive under a smaller tree that was close ...  no ants.

I still struggle to know how to get rid of the small ants though, once they are in ... they are in.  I have moved all the frames into another box in the past and then left the "contaminated" box in the sun for a week.  That moves them out but it is a real pain to do that .....

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