Hi Tom,

Try sprinkling cinnamon around the hive and the inner cover quite liberally. The girls don't mind it and the ants seem to hate it.

If your hive stand has legs on it, you can also put the legs in coffee cans and fill the cans with oil. It's like an ant prevention moat.

I have legs on the hive stand. I put duck tape around the legs a few inches off the ground and then apply Tanglefoot Pest Barrier to the tape. Ants get stuck in it by the thousands before they can reach the entrance. Good luck.

I was just told by a long time beekeeper that a leaf from a black walnut tree on the inner cover would remove ants from the hive.