I thought I saw on the top board what looked liked termites but my mother thought they were baby ants. Only saw them where the cover touched the other boards though. Is this an issue. I tried to brush t hem away.
So far the body count is 4 nucs I lost to sugar ants. I put these in the shade, the sugar ants found them and made them abscond, laying queen and everything.
Quote from: bwallace23350 on August 25, 2016, 01:23:54 PM
I thought I saw on the top board what looked liked termites but my mother thought they were baby ants. Only saw them where the cover touched the other boards though. Is this an issue. I tried to brush t hem away.
http://cdn.orkin.com/images/termite-vs-flying-ant_350x240.jpg
Whether flying or not, note that the termite's shape is without the wasp-waist that the ant has.
It was a termite then. Will they hurt my bees?
Is there any barrier between your hive and the ground? If so it's probably not termites. To answer your question I'd say no.
Except to eat their house.
Look for a soil tube from soil to wood. They can't live long in open air. I have my hives on cinder blocks set on their ends,so about a foot from soil.
My hives are sitting on wooden pallets so they are off the ground but on wood. I will have to fix that in the winter.
you might not want to wait. I worked on a house once that by the time the owners realized they had them the only thing left of the baseboard in a room addition was the paint.
Yep, those pallets make a great entrance way to the wood in your hives. I don't think they'll do anything to the bees. It's the wood they find tasty. Get them up higher. Raise them and make sure they don't have a way to the soil and the termites probably will die. They have to go into moist (relatively speaking) soil to survive. Exposed to the air, they'll dessicate.
By the way, the scientific name for termite means equal wing. When they are swarming, if you pick one of them up, use your fingers to flair their wings. Termite wings will have all 4 wings the exact same length. They are the only ones in the ant family with equip wings.
Jim