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Fire ants have attacked!
Tonight I was going thru my bottled stock and found that fire ants had attacked my last bottles of raspberry wildflower mead. They ate through the corks and mead leaked from 3-4 bottles. The other bottles have not been comprised but look chewed up.
Can I rebottle and recork my stock? Is there anything special I should do to save my last dozen remaining bottles. It is a rockin raspberry and it a fav at the knitting parlour. 
I wouldn't recork the ones that have been opened but as long as you recork the "uncompromised" ones in a sanitary manner you should be fine. To save them from future attacks I would put them in a container that the ants won't be able to get to.
Thanks Andrew! This is just what I was think, the leaking bottles have been dumped and I am waiting for the weekend so I won't be rushed during the process of rebottling. I have never had a problem before with the fire ants but this year the drought was so unreal and they probably were just looking for something liquid to drink. I know now that I won't put my storage boxes up against an outside wall again.
I just purchased my holiday gift for myself. It is a standing hydraulic corker from Italy. It does both champagne and regular corks. Put it up beside the tree with a big red bow on it. I already have several friends who want to borrow it.
Andrew, I ended up using some plastic champagne corks that I had extra from another bottling. They fit snug and look much better. I sanitized everything in sight and took this opportunity to leave some of the sediment behind in the old bottles. I ended up with some cork in a couple of bottles of mead but strained it out with the use of sterile gauze (hospital grade). At this point, only time will tell but I feel confident I have done everything I could trying to save the mead.
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