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To keep ants from crawling up your hive stand legs you can place the legs
in coffee cans of old oil (or water if you replace the water when it
needs it).  Obviously this is only feasible if you have a relatively
small number of hives.
 
(Another method that I've had limited success with is placing wood ashes
around hive legs.  this was as Peace Corps volunteer in South America.
Some beekeepers I knew swore by this method.  It is probably way too
labor intensive to work for anybody on this list but maybe of interest to
readers anyhow??)