Carpenter Ants

[p51d]

I have several hives on a farm which attract carpenter ants.

All the hives kicked the bucket over the winter but I have gotten a swarm back into one. Others await new packages when they are available.

The little ants march up the outside to the inner cover, whenever I work the bees, I knock the ants off but to no avail. Next week, and they are back.

Is there anything I can do with bees in the box? The other boxes are side by side with the same issue...

Ant killer stakes in the ground? I don't want to poison the bees.

[Jacobs]

Most of the ants in this area are more of a bother than a threat to the honey bees. I have had ants take residence in inner covers before, but they did not seem to be a problem for healthy, active colonies. When I see ants marching into a colony of bees, it is usually a sign that something bad is going on with that colony and I need to see if I can get in and fix it.

I do keep a bottle of cinnamon oil (artificial cassia oil) that I can apply with q-tips. Ants will not cross cinnamon and I have used this to stop a parade of ants from going into my observation hive at times. I don't know if a little bit of cinnamon powder on the inner cover would slow ants from that direction. I haven't tried it. The powder does not stay put/last long in the exposed outdoor environment.

Hopefully, someone will have some ideas about how to safely deal with foraging ants.

[Wally]

What I have found is, "inner lid flat side up, ants take over." "inner lid, flat side down, ants no problem."
No hole in home made inner lid, ants destroy the hive.

[p51d]

I tried the Jacob's cinnamon oil as a test and will report back with the results. Thanks Jacob and Wally for the responses.

Happy Easter to the beekeepers

[JDavis]

I have been fighting the same problem. Two weeks ago, I found what I believe to be the parent colony, and began treating it with a spectracide pellet specifically formulated for ants. (sprinkle it on, water it in, late at night in my case) They are far enough away from the hive (50' downhill) that I don't expect it to be much of a problem for the bees. Since treating the hives, the population of ants that I am seeing near the hives definitely seems to be going down. Today, I probably saw a total of 15 ants, where two weeks ago, I saw 50 or more under the outer cover of a very strong colony. These covers are installed the way Wally described as being best. The bees just didn't seem to care about their upstairs neighbors.