Earwig, Ant (And Other Crawling Insect) Barriers

While we have nothing against the other 6-legged insects you find in your yard, they also usually don't have any shortage of housing options. To keep your bee home free of earwigs, ants and other crawling insects that like to take up residence or steal from your bees' stockpile of food, we have our earwig and ant barriers.

Each barrier comes with an 18g tin of Protek Insect Barrier with an applicator. This sticky barrier is non-toxic to insects, and is made of natural gum resins, wax and vegetable oil. It acts as a barrier to crawling insects, but in our testing we found that it is not so sticky that flying insects become trapped if they accidentally land on it.

Standard Mount Barrier

The standard mount barrier is a replacement mount for your bee home, used to attach it to existing structures. It is identical in function to our regular mount, but is an additional 2 inches long. This provides enough room to wrap the portion of the mount where the pocket screws are with a clear outdoor tape (included), which can then be covered in Protek. As long as there are no plants or other objects touching your bee home, crawling insects will be forced to cross on the mount itself and will be blocked by the barrier.

If you use this mount option, we recommend ensuring that your bee home is not somewhere where a larger animal such as a raccoon could easily perch on top. The extended arm adds leverage that could help tear the screws out of whatever you have mounted it to if too much weight is applied.

Note: If you are purchasing this with one of our bee homes, a discount will automatically be applied at checkout to refund you the difference in cost between our standard mount and this barrier.

Garden Stand Barrier

The earwig and ant barrier for the garden stand simply screws on top of the existing stand, and the home itself screws to the top of it. You apply Protek to the upper part as shown in the photos. On very hot days, some of the Protek may slowly drip down the face, so we built a moat to catch any excess, which you can then reapply.