I was having a problem with little tiny ants all over the hive so I told my husband about how I was going to put the legs of the hive stand in cans and fill with oil. He insisted that I use a vegetable type oil instead of old used motor oil (like I have read that people use) so that is what I did. After one day I had about 2-3 dozen bees drown in it. Now, would this happen no matter what or are they for some reason attracted to the canola oil I used. This is my first hive and they were just put in the hive 8 days ago from a package. I may just be getting my panties in a knot but I hate seeing bees drown. :(
Maybe you can go buy some screen material and cut them to fit around the leg and over the cans. I was having a big problem with black ants getting into my top feeder. I ended up stapling screen material over the feeder and wraping the edges with duct tape. That has kept the ants out of the feeder and now I don't see them hanging around the hive too much.
I did this my first year beekeeping and I used motor oil. The bees are attracted to the oil because it looks like water. You need to remove those cans of motor oil, because I did not and they got totally filled up with dead bees. It was disgusting.
Or maybe the screen technique mentioned above will work
Where in the ants in the hive? Or just on the outside. A strong colony does a pretty good job keeping ants at bay.
I used "Tanglefoot" on the bottom of my hive legs. I use a TBH though. So unless the lang's sit on a stand of some kind... Anyhow, I get a random bee stuck in it now and then but nothing too drastic. It keeps the ants away and all other ground crawlies too!