diff --git a/attributes/default.rb b/attributes/default.rb
index 78b04113..229e9d74 100644
--- a/attributes/default.rb
+++ b/attributes/default.rb
@@ -45,9 +45,8 @@
 # 15 and 60 is a reasonable interval.
 default['datadog']['check_freq'] = 15
 
-# If running on ec2, use the instance-id as the host identifier
-# rather than the hostname.
-# If you have set up meaningful hostnames for your EC2 instances, set this to "no"
+# If running on ec2, if true, use the instance-id as the host identifier
+# rather than the hostname for the agent or nodename for chef-handler.
 default['datadog']['use_ec2_instance_id'] = false
 
 # Use mount points instead of volumes to track disk and fs metrics
diff --git a/recipes/dd-handler.rb b/recipes/dd-handler.rb
index bd5517c4..126f6473 100644
--- a/recipes/dd-handler.rb
+++ b/recipes/dd-handler.rb
@@ -40,7 +40,8 @@
   source "chef/handler/datadog"
   arguments [
     :api_key => node['datadog']['api_key'],
-    :application_key => node['datadog']['application_key']
+    :application_key => node['datadog']['application_key'],
+    :use_ec2_instance_id => node['datadog']['use_ec2_instance_id']
   ]
   supports :report => true, :exception => true
   action :nothing