Today’s Run:  45 min lifting at the “Y”

Today my husband and I walked out to the visit the apiary.  What we saw has us a little bit concerned.

In front of the middle hive, there is the largest fire ant colony I have ever seen.  And there is a trail of ants going up and down the hive.  This is not good.  So, I “Googled” it.

What I found was an article from a fellow beekeeper from the Delta.  It is a blog entry from 2009 dealing with this specific issue and it is not good news.

He was examining a bee hive and dropped a frame of bees and brood, well actually threw the frame back into the hive.  Now every beekeeper knows that you keep a good grip on everything associated with a bee hive.  Why did he do this?  Both of his hands were covered with stinging fire ants!  He has fire ants living IN his bee hives!  The fire ants were establishing colonies between the outer and inner covers of the bee hives.

It is difficult to control an invasive critter.  There are few ways to mechanically control fire ants.  The live deep in the soil.  There are insecticides available for use and they may be effective but there is always the possibility that they will become resistant to them.  Boo.

So~tomorrow, when it is a little warmer, we will open the hives.  I put some insecticide on the ant hill.  Hope it does not kill the bees, too.  It is difficult to know how to treat situations like this.