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SAFE GARDENING TIP – How to Remove Ants from Your Bee House

Ants love the sweet pollen the mom bees have left for their babies and they also love fruit trees and other plants in your garden. There are a couple of things you can do to safely deter or remove ants without harming your mason bees.

Carefully remove your mason bee nesting block. You may have bees buzzing, you but they won’t bother you. Brush off and clear out as many that you can find. Brush off the back carboard as well.

  • Get a liquid ant trap and place behind your nesting block.

  • Ants coming from the ground – You can get ant stakes.
  • Create an Insect Barrier – You can wrap the bottom of your bee house with blue painters tape then smear it with a sticky substance like Tanglefoot (https://www.tanglefoot.com/) or BioGlue. Both are non-toxic and will stop or prevent ants from entering your bee house. This will also work for your fruit trees or other ant paths in your yard. You can find these in most garden nurseries.
  • The other trick is to slime their path with Vaseline.

Any combination of the above should help eliminate any unwanted ants.

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Bee Amazed

Mason bees
visit up to
2,000
flowers a day
400 Mason bees
do the work of
40,000
honey bees
One Mason bee
block can hold
500
eggs
Farmers
release
1,000
bees per acre
to pollinate their
crops