Well I am the bloke who sits on the pivot of the SEE-Saw. Of all the posts on the forum about Noesema, Foul Brood and all those things ants are my greatest annoyance and all I need to know is how to keep them away from my hives.
By the way Mick a Jack-Jump bite is worse than a bullants. They are a lot smaller but the after effects are far worse.
Mick and Geoff, OK you both are driving me nuts with these hideous insects. When I have a chance later on I am heading off on the net to look up both these insects. I have an pretty strong interest in this area too. What I can't get over is what you said Mick about the bullants. That you can SMELL them just before they bite you. Yick!!! Do you have a chance to move away really fast before they inflict their pain?
So Geoff, what are the after effects of the Jump-jack? Curiosity never got this cat yet.
About the ants and your hives. I think that there would be some good advice coming your way from the forum. Can you get hold of some ant traps? They are little flat circular containers that the ants go into, but don't come out of? I use them, just in case. Don't have any problems.
Another thing I saw in a book was: if the hives were on "leg" stands, the legs were placed in a little container with some kind of oil, I would imagine cooking oil would be the environmentally safe. The ants would have to be able to figure out how to crawl over the oil to get up, and that's not likely. I am sure that there are many ways.
In all my years of gardening around our farm and other places that I have lived, I have not had the wonderful experience of being bitten by anything. In our area there is probably lots of "bad" bugs that can do harm, like tics, for sure, but I haven't encountered them.
The worst that has happened to me is when I am working outside, those darn stink beetles will sometimes crawl up inside my jeans around my ankles and tickle my legs as they are crawling up. They are black and really do stink if you touch them, they are large, about 1 inch long. This does freak me out every time, it is eery. I am sure quite often someone around here sees me jump up and jump up and down trying to dislodge this little pest from my leg. I guess they see the darkness the open bottom of the pant leg and think it would be a dark place to hide it and crawl in. They have rough little feet, like so many insects and you can feel them pricking your skin as they crawl. I don't think that they bite though. Yikes!!! It freaks me out just thinking about it. Talk about ants in your pants!!!! We have another bug that is annoying, it is the stink bug itself. It likes to be in the raspberries, I don't think it harms anything, just stinks. You can smell it when you go near it. Stinky stink bug.
Rambling, yup, I can do that. Good luck with your Australian buggers. Great day. Cindi.