Erva SB2D Raccoon & Squirrel Baffle These are two of the most frequently asked questions each summer. Ants are easy. We sell the fantastic little Nectar Protector from Songbird Essentials. This device, when filled with water, keeps the ants from ever getting to your nectar feeders. It is simple, inexpensive and truly does the job. Bees on the other hand are a very difficult task indeed. Most anything we do to discourage bees will affect the hummingbirds.

Select a hummingbird feeder with bee guards. These plastic devices allow the longer tongues of hummingbirds to reach the nectar. Bee guards prevent shorter insect tongues from reaching the nectar. Replace any dripping feeders. You can also do things to discourage ants from getting to your feeders. Laundry detergent applied with a paintbrush will work. Paint whatever surface the ants use to gain access to the feeder (but not the feeder itself).

Leave them up until December, but make sure fresh syrup (4 parts water/1 part sugar) is in the feeder

This is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. They both attack en masse and can both cause fatal allergic reactions, but that's where the similarities end. Africanized bees can overwhelm and kill even healthy non-allergic people, but encounters are rather rare. Fire ants can't overwhelm a healthy, mobile person and even hundreds of stings are rarely fatal. But, fire ant mounds are extremely common.

Hummingbirds natural diet is flowers, and they are especially attracted to RED flowers. This preference is actually a...

We are not able to supply you with a personalized date for placing your feeders up in the spring. The best answer may come from an Audubon Society close to your location. We do keep a chart of spring arrival dates from our visitors and you are welcome to view it and add your sightings. Hummingbirds - Spring Arrival Dates

Examine your yard for bee nests or red ant colonies before doing any yard work or allowing children to play outside. Also be aware when in school fields, parks and other open areas. Never disturb a bee nest or swarm, or approach a red ant colony. Also, teach your children to avoid these dangers. Report any suspected Red Imported Fire Ant mounds on private property to the Orange County Agricultural Commission.

It is very difficult to keep insects, especially flying insects, away from hummingbird feeders. Some feeders have built-in nectar guards that prevent the insect from getting access to the nectar by using a flexible membrane that only the hummingbirds are able to bypass. To deter ants, you may want to purchase a feeder with a built-in "ant cup", which can be filled with water and prevents the ants from reaching the feeding ports.

It's preferable to hang hummingbird feeders apart from each other and away from seed feeders. Birds can be territorial about their food, and hummers are particularly feisty when it comes to sharing their nectar. Put up at least two hummingbird feeders, preferably out of sight of each other. That way the less dominant females will get a chance to eat without being harassed by the males.

These are not ants, but rather a wingless solitary (non-social) female wasp in the family Multillidae. Females are wingless and typically colorful; males have wings. The common name for the group is "velvet ants." Here in Central Texas we have about 40 species of velvet ants, some small and some big. The "hiss" is called "stridulation" and is caused by washboard-textured body segments rubbing rapidly against one another.

House Bees" are young bees, not yet old enough to forage. They collect nectar from foragers near the hive entrance, and place it in comb. Other, even younger House Bees do things like draw foundation out into comb. While these bees can fly, they tend to stay in the hive. These bees are crucial to success in producing large honey crops, since there is quite a bit of labor required to move nectar around, combine evaporated nectar, cap cells of "ripened" honey, and so on.

Fire ants reproduce opportunistically when conditions are wet and warm. They are found in all types of soil, but they do better in open pastures and sunny, grassy places than in thick shaded woods. Grassy medians of freeway and mowed pipeline and powerline rights of ways provide prime "freeways" for the ants too. Polygyne colonies (those with multiple queens/mound) can reproduce by budding off new colonies and spread by walking a few meters per year.

Please feel free to email us with any questions or comments not covered here. We will attempt to find or direct you to the appropriate answers.

Yes. Cocos has these annoying ants, which can inflict a nasty bite. Be very aware of "bare" patches as this is usually an excellent indication that a fire ants nest is there.

Both biological wisdom and recent research indicate that fire ants, like other opportunistic organisms, become more "weedlike" and achieve pest status when introduced into regions free of their natural biological enemies, such as parasites and pathogens. A case in point is the fire ant species native to Texas. Our native fire ant species is a is a minor nuisance at home, but a major pest in India where it was inadvertently introduced.

If you have a pair of observation hives, simply expose the bees in one observation hive at regular intervals to enough Bee-Quick to induce a noticeable reaction, while marking newly-emerged bees to be able to record the average lifespan of a statistically significant number of bees. As a control, have a second observation hive that is never exposed to Bee-Quick, but otherwise treated identically.

Nothing will get all the bees out of every super. There will always be a few bees that are too stubborn to leave, for reasons unknown. (There, we just admitted what no one else except a beekeeper will tell you! At least we are honest...) The few bees that remain in the supers are fairly easy to shake or brush off the frames. If you remove the "stubborn" bees from one super while waiting for the fume board to work on another super or hive, things go fairly smoothly.

If the bees are not an immediate threat, call any local exterminator/pest control company found in the yellow pages of your phone book.

The Palm Springs Fire Department does not remove bees unless there is imminent danger to a person. If such a situation exists, firefighters must destroy the bees and the hives. To have bees removed, look in the Yellow Pages under "Beekeepers or Exterminators."

Bees live for 6 weeks when gathering nectar during the summer. Their wings gradually wear away from constant activity. Those that are alive in the later fall live till spring and care for the larva hatched from eggs laid in late winter. These worker bees die before the honey flow starts again in the spring. The queen bee can live for 3-4 years.

First, stay away from the bees. Even though a swarm is usually docile, honeycomb construction may be starting (thus a colony being established and defensive behavior being exhibited) underneath the bees. Second, contact a PCO that handles bee removal.

There are numerous types of insects that can sting you if provoked. Social bees and wasps (live in a single nest) will vigorously defend their nest during the summer months and are the most likely to sting humans. These include paper wasps, hornets, yellowjackets, and honey bees. The solitary bees and wasps nest as pairs and rarely sting humans. These include the carpenter bees, mud daubers, ground bees, cicada killers, and potter wasps.

Look at the ants. Fire ants include many opportunistic ant species of the genus Solenopsis. There are native and imported species. Native Texas fire ants are very similar to the imported pest, but actually help retard the spread of the imported species and should be spared if possible. Both native and imported fire ants are small, dark orange/brown ants with workers of various sizes that quickly mobilize and sting en mass when their mound is disturbed .

Along the Nexican border of Texas and in West Texas, there exist native fire ants that are difficult to distinguish from their imported cousins. However, if you can see four tiny teeth on the mandible or jaw of a fire ants, it is S. invicta. Native species possess three teeth. Over East, Central and much of South Texas, the most common native fire ant, S. geminata, can be distinguished without examination of tiny details of anatomy.

You might have seen pictures of massed fire ants killing hatchling quail chicks or stinging the noses and eyes of newborn deer. Without question RIFA can kill young birds, small mammals, and reptiles. However, in the case of quail, it could be that a more important impact on populations is the removal of insect food that would normally be available to quail chicks.

egg laid by queen 2. larva hatches and grows through 4 larval developmental stages or instars between which molts of larval skin occur 3. at 4th molt a pupa is produced 4. pupa hatched into adult ant. How the colony feeds and cares for female larvae determines their caste; i.e., whether they behave as workers (all are sterile females) or queens. Male ants develop from unfertilized eggs and therefore possess only one set of chromosomes; i.e. they are haploid.