At 10:21 AM 6/26/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Robert E Butcher wrote:
>>
>> Hi , does anyone know of a good non chemical way of keeping out them
>> stinking little ants?
>
>This has always worked for me- place green leaves, grape or sumac fronds
>do well, between the top and inner cover. They will soon leave.
 
Hi Bee Friends,
 
Never tried this, don't have inner covers, but it sounds like a real good
idea. There was a report years ago for SA that beekeepers did nothing for
Varroa in much of the area for mites but one was found that used your idea
for Varroa but used Tomato plants. I don't know if any work was ever done
on this, I doubt it as little money would be in it. I think he covered the
hives with tomato plants. I wonder what effect it would have on bees to be
placed in a tomato field or hive tomato plants gowning between the hives?
 
For piss ants and grease eating ants here some beekeepers use agricultural
sulfur or ground sulfur and a lawn spreader to lay wide lines of sulfur
around their bee yards and bee hives. (It don't rain here during our long
brown season.) This also works for keeping the skunks out of the bees as
they lick their paws and fur and don't like the sulfur.
 
AJAX and other scouring cleansers dusted around bee hives may also keep the
ants out. I would not put it out in a way the bees would get into it or put
it in the hive itself. Boric acid dust works for ants and roach's.
 
The real secret to keeping happy healthy bees is to find bee yard sites
that are high and dry and free of these pests. (I know your back yard is
the only choice for many but then hive stands with the feet in old motor
oil is 2nd best.) Some nice looking bee sites are abandoned by beekeepers
because of these problems and just about any commercial beekeeper has a
list of these yards found from hard experiences.
 
I had several bee yards that the ant's and roach's required more time and
labor to keep out of the bees then the bees themselves and then the next
year it was the same thing over again.
 
For skunks, and it is true that if you are really having a problem the bees
will meet you at the gate. Anyway I have trapped then alive, shoot them,
rocked them and been sprayed on by them. In Colorado it was so bad that
they would come out and start eating the bees in the late afternoon before
you would leave the yard. Anyway unless you have lots of time the only way
that really has worked for me is to poison the little guys. And I have had
them for pets, but they are like anything else in nature, if the food is
in good supply they will breed themselves up to populations and do a lot of
damage.
 
What you do depends on your own personality and conditions, laws in your
neighborhood. There still are good poisons that work and are sold for
gophers and the like. The last good lap dog I had ate some of these coming
home one night from moving bees and died without a whimper with her head on
my lap on the seat of the truck. I kept the gopher bait in its original
"child proof" bottle which was not dog proof. It was my fault for keeping
it in a box on the truck seat and I did not think... I only mention this as
a warning of what can happen even today when our choice of materials has
been reduced to a few that are supposed to be safe but "thinking" remains
an option even with these. I have used stuff without accident that was
guaranteed to kill an 80 pound mouse, and other stuff that was guaranteed
to give the users wife and kids cancer all of which are no longer
available. In the old days few commercial beekeepers had not killed their
family dog gassing comb rooms and as those who burn sulfur have burned down
their comb storage room. Lucky for us we can still burn sulfur and many do
using a old land/sea van box has saved many a honey barn and is great for
treating hive bodies with wax worms.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
 
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