112 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



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A Great Experience with Ants 

 in California. 



WriUen for the American Bee Journal 

 BY C. W. DAYTON. 



I notice Mr. Lovesy's claim for Utah 

 being the worst place for ants, and 

 think he should except California. Here 

 I am troubled more or less with four 

 sizes of red ants less than 3/16-inch 

 long. Then there are still many more 

 lengths of the same color, all the way 

 up to %-inch, which is the largest ant I 

 have seen. They are very fond of 

 honey, and search for it only at night. 

 If a club was thrown at one of these 

 ants, he would prepare to meet and de- 

 molish it with all the rage and courage 

 of a grizzly bear. This ant may be 

 easily caged by fixing a bait of honey 

 and a bee-escape. 



Then there are the corresponding sizes 

 of black ants. I kept 50 colonies of 

 bees on the north side of a hill about 

 three months last winter, and ants about 

 ^ of an inch long were constantly car- 

 rying away the honey. The whole hill 

 seemed to be full of them. At first I 

 tried to exterminate them with poisoned 

 honey, but finally I set the hives up on 

 stakes 6 inches high, and painted the 

 stakes with tar. Bees that I set on the 

 south side of the hill at the same time 

 used much less honey, and kept in much 

 the best condition, not being troubled 

 with ants. 



Some red ants about % of an inch 

 long were doing a " land-office business" 

 in my extracting room about a month 

 ago, and seemed to recruit about as fast 

 as I could trap them in the honey-room, 

 but when I followed up their trail about 

 100 feet away, and poured burning 

 kerosene into their burrow, they imme- 

 diately disappeared. 



There are several varieties of ants of 

 the same size. In some localities nearly 

 every blossom of white sage will contain 

 an ant after the honey. 



Then there is a very numerous kind 

 of ant that seem to care nothing for 

 honey, but will congregate where there 

 is water. I notice by leaving water in 

 a wooden pail will cause them to con- 

 gregate and burrow under it ; also un- 

 der bee-hives, and they fight the bees 

 when they come in their way. Possibly 

 the dew on potato-tops might attract 

 them when all the rest of the ground 

 was dry. The best I could do for these 

 was to entice them into one place by 

 tubs or wet boards, spray them with 

 gasoline, and set it on fire. 



In some places greasewood, white and 

 black sage, wild buckwheat, and wild 

 alfalfa have for years grown and died, 

 thickly covering the ground with rub- 

 bish amongst a new growth of the same, 

 making a most excellent habitation for 

 ants. 



Soon after putting up a tent and be- 

 ginning extracting, I discovered that 

 several kinds of ants were numerous, 

 and when I would find a nest of them 

 making a raid on the extractor or cap- 

 ping can, a dose of kerosene would 

 usually check them enough to be ^toler- 

 ated. But about two weeks ago a new 

 set of black ants put in an appearance, 

 whose number approached the intoler- 

 able, as they simply swarmed into and 

 upon everything either sweet or sour. 



Soon after them also came the spryest 

 little red ants I have ever seen, and for 

 pilfering were simply astonishing. I 

 found a belt of them six inches wide, 

 and as close together as the cells in 

 honey-comb in the extractor. I took up 

 their trail, burning all the grass over 

 them, and put burning oil in their bur- 

 row. Then they were entirely gone for 

 about six hours, when it was found that 

 they had established in new quarters, 

 and formed a trail to the extractor 

 about two feet wide. By raking up all 

 the grass and weeds, and spreading it 

 over the ground and burning it, their 

 progress was checked again. 



Up to noon the next day no ants 

 came, so I left the apiary for two days. 

 On my return I found their numbers in- 

 creased at least ten times. There were 

 six or eight trails, and they had spread 

 out on the old trail about ten feet wide. 

 Several colonies of bees that came in 

 their way swarmed with ants inside and 

 outside the hives. Three colonies were 

 strong extracting colonies, with upper 

 stories, and when I rapped on the hive 

 no response came, while other colonies 

 were working lively. These hives were 

 opened without smoke — a thing I had 

 never been able to do before, and ants 



