Getting rid of ants

I find them easy to use and my brother in Murray Beach introduced them to me as he has 28 hives and all plastic. Easy to keep clean. I modified the base board to incorporate a sliding beetle tray with veg oil.

My hive sits on cinder block not a stand. :frowning: I did check the various moat designs but No legs. I tried oil on the block but we had rain and so I see they are still on hive.

My ant-prone hive is on a cinder block stand too. I just put a thick sheet of painted plywood on top of the blocks, then put the moats on top of that. Easy to space them to sit under the bottom board. :wink:

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Oh now this looks promising!! So ant cap cover, what are they used for? I am a bit off the beaten path only have Home Depot. Could you give a little more information so I could try to find? Do you put anything under it? Looks like tin bent? This would also work for rodents…

OH OK I have some options I saw the ant cap hendo posted. Purfect, several creative moats and I will study that design. I will nip this quickly. Little buggers. I do think the ant cap idea would keep rodents out also.

You could always do both. I don’t know if you have argentine ants in Hawaii, but those caps do not stop that type of ant. They are pretty good for some kinds of termite, but I have not had much luck with them against the kind of ants we have. However, that cap on top of some ply with moats on top of that would solve rodents and ants. :smile:

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I am going to. Might even modify to keep hive from twisting on the blocks when I open it. Thanks again

Hi

You are correct…in Australia we use these ant caps on top of brick piers
before we place timber bearers on top and start building our houses. It
keeps out ants and other pests from destroying the timbers.

What you stated is correct, simple sheet of tin that is bend on the edges.
If your home hardware don’t stock it, it is simple to find a sheet metal
place and show them the picture and have it made up.
It work great for me …my brother who has 28 hives uses the same principle
and we don’t have any ant problems.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Hendo1944

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Hmmm i thought ant caps were used for termites(whiteant) Not to stop them but to force them out into the open. The mud tunnel is then visible so you know you have a whiteant problem.

This is my understanding also. Having lived many years in wood stumped houses with ant caps,
the ant caps do have a deterrent affect in that white ants don’t like building mud tunnels on tin but caps do not stop white ants altogether. You can see the mud trails on caps though , where as on a wooden stump the trails are very hard to see.

Hiya @NeuManaHui - Borax traps work a treat too. When I saw ants crawling up the one side of my hive in early summer, I made up one of the traps I’ve often used in my house & placed it right up to the side of the box where the trail was.

Mix one part borax to three parts sugar & dissolve in water, put some into a small glass jar with a cotton ball or bit of paper towel for ants to climb on, cover jar opening with aluminum foil & secure with rubber band or the ring for the jar if it’s the type for preserves. Poke a few holes in the foil with a fork or something - large enough for ants but too small for bees!

Eventually they’ll all start going in there instead of the hive, because it’s easier. Keep an eye on the trap to make sure the foil barrier is intact & replenish your mixture when the body count gets high inside the jar.

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Good deal thats an easy quick fix. I am off today so can get to store. I can place it in block will try that and the vaseline to stop immediately. Then, I may do the platform with the moats and the metal as I dont think rodents can crawl into hive on the metal. Thank you so much for the ideas. Really like to try easy ideas like these. Plus sun is out light breeze hope to peak in to see if they did damage.

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Used motor oil in a setup similar to dabailey1 (see above) - became a bee grave. Hundreds of bees wound up filling the traps and dieing. Had to replace with water. Bees covered in oil are not a pretty sight. I think they were pretty angry as I am disappointed in the effect this had, both on bees and myself. :disappointed:

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Even now, plenty of bees drowning in the water. Is my ant barrier just too close to the entrance?? What to do?

Bees are still quite agitated from moving the boxes to get the new legs in. I hope once they’ve settled down, drownings will be much less.

I put a cover over the top of mine - a sort of umbrella if you like. This stops leaves and rain from falling into the moat, but it also seems to stop the bees too. This is my first model and it worked fine, the latest model has a 4 inch PVC end cap instead of the DVD:

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It’s a beautiful solution. Thanks. I’ll try something similar!

Thanks for sharing this.

Sorry to hear your bees were drowning :confused:
Just a thought - do they have access to water for drinking? If not, I wonder if that’s why they were attracted to your traps…