Ant guard with NeverWet Flow Hive 2

I watched the videos of Jeff Willard you wrote to me about.

My understanding is that the SHB or ants fall off a vertical surface that is treated but the concrete paver will give them a horizontal surface so they won’t fall off it so are you hoping they wan’t get enough traction to walk on the surface at all?
Cheers

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I was curious as to whether they’d be able to climb the vertical surface. They can and do although the ratio to the untreated would be somewhere between 300-500:1.
They seem to dislike it and the ones that got to the attractant didn’t stay and feed like the others.
At the end of 5hours the untreated was very nearly gone and the treated was virtually untouched.

You don’t need to go to all that trouble. It comes on a roll here, with self-adhesive all-weather backing. Just peel off the paper and slap it on where you want it. :wink:

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I reckon you could just spray the legs, without making that disk, and going by the non-stick principle, the ants shouldn’t be able to crawl up the legs.
On another note - I’m curious to see - if the vertical part of the concrete is coated with neverwet - maybe they won’t be able to crawl up that too… (I hope someone experiments :wink: )

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10:07
Untreated on right/front
Treated rear/left

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11:07
Untreated
image Treated


Ants can and do climb onto the treated paver, but at a rate of 500:1 compared with untreated. They don’t stay at the attractant and eat whereas the others do.
Not much happening on the other test pieces yet.
I’m removing half the attractant off the pavers.

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Have I missed something?

What were the pavers treated with?

You must have missed something :grin:
It’s called NeverWet, I posted a test a couple of days ago just using the aluminium disc and there was some discussion about whether it would work on concrete.
So rather than hypothetical conjecture, I thought I’d try it.
I have no life :joy::man_facepalming:

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12:07
Untreated
image
Treated


Untreated

Treated

Nothing happening on the discs other than picking at the bits on the ground.

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1:07
Untreated


Treated

image
Nothing happening on other pieces.

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3:07
The attractant on the untreated paver is virtually all gone, the treated paver is barely touched.
Whatever remains on any of the pieces is being ignored, apparently ants aren’t fond of sun dried beef and liver cat food.

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A man after my own heart! I love it! :blush:

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Now just to remember to rebait after days, weeks and months…

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My final combination is going to be, coated pavers, coated bolt of the leg (not the rubber foot) with the disc. i haven’t finalised at what height the disc will be yet but an M12 nut allows you a fair amount of flexibility with that.
Make those little buggers go from unpleasant to hard to damn near impossible.

I love the disc idea. I understand that the steeper the incline, the harder it is for ants to climb on these kind of products. I would think that an “overhanging cliff” effect would be truly impossible, and the underside of it should be somewhat protected from dirt, rain and UV damage. Brilliant concept. :blush: :heart_eyes:

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I have hives on stands with wooden legs- I am going to try this product on them. Thanks for the scientific field testing! We don’t have beetles but the word is they are coming.

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My pleasure, it was one of those golden nuggets that’s on YouTube that I happened to stumble across.

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How are the bees reacting when they encounter the stuff?

i can’t give you any first hand observations as yet, my hives are still being prepared and it’ll be a few weeks until my bees are in them.
i’d refer you to Jeff Willards’s YouTube page, there’s lots of footage of bees interacting with it.

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How is your ant guard going @Brad13 ?