By Kimberley Burch, Sunset imaging specialist and Margaret Sloan, Sunset production coordinator
The day after we applied the powdered sugar dusting, the ants came back twice over!! They were all over the place! Crazy. On the bright side, we’re hoping they’ll gobble up any mites that fall to the ground. That will certainly keep the mites from crawling back into the hive.
Bill Stephens, our imaging supervisor, made us hive stands (payment was oatmeal-raisin cookies by Margo). We painted the stands white, smeared the base of the legs with Tanglefoot and set them in plastic containers. The lids rest precariously on push pins above the containers. There’s only a bit of space so that the bees can’t get in.
This did not work. A little bit of dust, and the the ants marched right over the Tanglefoot and into the hive. This morning we discovered a whole platoon of ants.
Much ant-smashing occurred.
Then we filled the containers with water; the ants can’t cross a moat of water, can they?
Some bees have fallen into the containers, but only a few. Can bees learn to stay out of dangerous areas?
