SHB Problems!

[BeeAware]

I've been getting a lot more emails and phone calls from new beekeepers in the Southeast regarding SHBs than in past summers. I've helped several folks get started in the last few years but this year they all seem to be having problems with the SHB more so than in years past. I was wondering if this is the same experience others are having?

bees@mysite.com

[jbford]

had none until last year.

got a bee tree from neighbor that was loaded with them

this year set extracted supers out for bees to clean up, they were like a SHB magnet. looks like they now are as bad as wax moths for stored supers.

[paintingpreacher]

I am seeing SHB in most of my hives this year. In the past I only had a few. Have seen them in strong hives in full sunlight. Had a lot of rain in the spring and now it is dry. It seems that something has caused their population to increase in my area.

[jfreeman1944]

We seem to have more than usual here in the southeast corner of Arkansas.
And we already had plenty!
Jerry

[chad]

They are bad at my place,Ive lost 2 out of 4 hives so far.

[Sundance]

Have any of you tried using GaurdStar ground drench?

Just wondering how effective it is in heavily infested
locations. Seems to be inexpensive and it's a plant
based pesticide from what I understand.

[jfreeman1944]

I did not find Guardstar to be helpful. Hive beetle larvae do their damage BEFORE they leave the hive to pupate. Besides that, adult beetles probably migrate into the hives from areas farther away from the hives than where the Guardstar was applied. To prevent damage, the beetles - and larvae - have to be trapped inside the hive.

Jerry

[dindallas]

Does anyone have an inexpensive design for a SHB trap or another method to get rid of them?

[FANNBEE]

Shb not that big a problem this year in Central MS. Help a beek for the second year in a row extract his hives and saw fewer SHBs as last year.

The same in my hives. Seen just a few as compared to last year.

[GaSteve]

They're strange. I can work a yard of 8 hives of fairly equal strength and number of bees. In 6 or 7 I'll see the normal 4 or 5 beetles running around. I don't pay attention to them. But then there always seems to be one or sometimes two hives where there's always 20 to 40 beetles corralled in a corner of the inner cover. There's no apparent damage from them. I never see any larva -- unless a hive gets really weak for some reason.

I have heard that beetles can do unseen damage when larva tunnel through capped brood killing a lot of brood before the bees drag them out -- not sure. I am sure they spend a lot of time chasing beetles when they should be doing productive tasks.

[GaSteve]

As far as stored supers go, I have never seen them bother with comb that has never had brood in it. But if a cell has raised one bee in it, the beetles will destroy it. In fact from what I've observed, in frames where only a small portion had brood, the beetles will totally destroy every cell where the brood was, but will stop when they reach the portion where brood has never been -- even if the rest of the frame is full of honey.

[G3farms]

Beetles are not too bad here, see a few in every hive but so far no damage has been seen.

I will agree with GaSteve they will only go for the brood comb in stored wax. I had several buckets of combs from cut outs, the bees had robbed almost all of the honey out of them. They had been setting outside for several weeks and was going to put them in the wax melter, full of wax moths and SHB. the beetles and maggots were only on the brood comb and buckets of brood comb. The buckets with newer honey comb only had wax moths and no beetles. It all went into the fire, loss of several pounds of wax, gain of killing lots of wax worms, beetle worms and beetles. I will chalk this one up being stupid on my part to not melt the wax sooner.

G3

[possum51]

I have them also. I experimented with feeding a pint of sugar syrup that contained 1 ounce of hydrogen peroxide to one of my hives yeasterday. I checked them this morning and they were working well and I saw no signs of dead bees. As a matter of fact, they were working bringing in nectar and pollen seemingly better that ever. I will keep you posted. I possibly will increase the peroxide dosage. Please don't try this on your hives unless you are willing to experiment on your own. I would not use it on hives with honey supers because the peroxide would cause your honey to taste bad.

[possum51]

My reason for trying the peroxide experiment is that a young lady in Birmingham, Al won the first prize with her science project using peroxide in honey to kill small hive beetles. I can't find the dosage she used but evidently it worked. I will keep you posted as to my findings.

[SlickMick]

JFreeman1944 is correct in that the larva have done their damage before they get to the ground. Ground treatment can only be seen as a part of a whole management program.

The Queensland, Australia Dept Primary Industries have published a paper you can read on this link http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/cps/rde/dpi/hs.xsl/27_10638_ENA_HTML.htm. Towards the end they provide a list of management strategies.

My advice is dont take the shb lightly even if you find only a handful of them in a hive. If they get a head of steam on your hive will be wiped out in a matter of days.. my experience.

I now have traps on all my hives and have changed my management processes quite significantly

Mick

[hoodswoods]

It would take too long to describe what I've been thru, but let me just say that an open hive top is a recipe for disaster. If you need top ventilation, build a vent box with window screen that sits above & is sealed from your hive and sits below your inner cover.

I would like the bees to have a top entrance, but not until I figure out a way to keep SHB from entering - I went from 20 visible beetles daily to zero once I closed off my top entrance.

[Sundance]

Where the entrance is does not matter. Top or
bottom they will get in if the hive is not up to
strength and/or if there are excess empty (no
bees) frames.

Old equipment is not your friend either, any crack
or crevasse will give them a place to hide. The
space between the top bars and lid, and the bottom
bars and bottom must be big enough for bees to
protect them.

Just a few pointers I learned in Texas. I'd never
run down there again without traps.

[jfreeman1944]

Mick,
Are you the one with the post, 'SHB control, Accumulated Knowledge'? That is a great idea, but I can't find that post to reply to. This is definitely something we need to work on.

[hoodswoods]

Which is what I observed. My top deep brood only had 1/2 of one frame (of 10) drawn, which is one reason why I introduced a top entrance - trying to encourage my workers thru the easy way out. Had my top box been nearly completely drawn, I would not have expected the problem I experienced.

I guess that my point is IF you introduce a second entrance, bee sure that that box there is mature and well-drawn out and defended (or find another way to stop SHB from entering the hive via that entrance).

[Sundance]

Mick,
Are you the one with the post, 'SHB control, Accumulated Knowledge'? That is a great idea, but I can't find that post to reply to. This is definitely something we need to work on.

This is a good idea........ PM one of the moderators to the
section "Diseases & Pests" and ask them to make it a "sticky"
that way it will stay at the top of the posts.:thumbsup:

[BeeAware]

According to all the responses, it seems that the beetle problem is more severe this season. It seems to be in my area. I've not had a major infestation yet, but am taking more preventative measures now. I did drench with GardStar near the hives and put down a layer of pickling lime and some muriate of potash even farther out from the hives. I also have traps inside most of the smaller hives (new start-ups and nucs). I saw and killed 4 SHB in one of my nucs this afternoon. I have CheckMite+ on hand but I sure hope to avoid using it but I will if I must. Some beekeepers in my acquaintance have lost entire colonies to these pests this year. Good luck to all.

[busbee59]

earlier this year i was having a problem with ants in one of my hives, so i put borax around the outside edges of hive not on the landing board though. my botton has the screen for mites and the pull out board,on the pull out i was seeing alot of larve and other bugs in the fallen pollen. i thought i'd try some borax in there too the bees can't get on the board. so far i dont have anymore problems in this hive its been about a month now.this hive has 3 brood chambers and 3 med supers on it and did a split on it in may, its full now i need to split again but am going to wait to fall if they dont swarm

[Capricorn]

Glad to find this thread! I took the top off my hive the other day, only to find 15 or 20 SHB crowding around a few corners in between the telescoping top and inner cover. I had not seen a single one before. Bees were guarding the inner cover hole. I smashed all the beetles I could. I've been propping the telescoping top with a paint stirrer, and the top medium is empty. The two deeps below are close to fully drawn, so I figured they would want a honey super. They aren't using it yet though, so maybe I will pull it and close the top vent as a first step. I haven't opened the inner cover since I found the SHB, so I'm not sure what they are like in the hive proper.... Hope this doesn't hurt the hive too bad..

[peletier]

So far this year I have seen far fewer beetles than last. I have worked to keep all hives strong. Maybe that's it but who knows. I have all screen bottom boards but I don't think a beetle can fall through #8 screen.

[jfreeman1944]

I use #8 screen. Average size beetles crawl straight through #8 screen. The larger beetles have to turn sideways and crawl through diagonally.

[swabby]

My experience is limited to only 3 yrs. However in that time I have applied defence measures for SHB. My 1st and 2nd year I had SHB very bad even in direct sunlight.
The 2 defence I have found was during the winter months I moved the hives onto a rubberized tarp , which I no longer used, folding down into a 2 foot wide. Secondly I installed A/J beetle eaters in the bottom deeps with used cooking oil in them. This is a pain in the behind as I have big hands so I used an eye droper to fill after putting into place.
I am in the process of doing splits as we speak . I have placed black felt paper on the ground with concrete blocks and a board to set the new hives on.
My theory : the larva leaves the hive re-enters the ground underneath the hives to emerge and begin their life cycle all
over again. When they fall on the hot tarp or felt they are cooked ,stopping the process.
Time will tell as to hypothesis .

Happy bee trails to you.

[DebCP]

Yikes, this is my first year beekeeping and I have seen quite a few (ok a lot) SHB's so far. I live in the Gulfcoast area of Florida and was told they were going to be an issue. I knew I was in for a battle when the day we installed our two nucs I saw several SBH's fly right in while we installing the nucs into the hives.

One of my hives is very strong and seems to be keeping the SHBs under control. The weaker hive still appears to be ok, but I am keeping a close eye on it.

I am using the AJ's beetle eaters, but only have four per hive right now and I think I'll need more. Any suggestions as how many of these things to use, say per deep or super?

Finally, I ordered beneficial nematodes that love to eat SHB larvae, but this will only work to keep the population from getting totally out of control (as was noted earlier, it just prevents the larvae that have developed inside the hive from tunneling under ground and creating more beetles). I thought about the Guardstar, but it is also harmful to bees since it has pyrethrin in it.

We just pulled two supers off our hives full of capped honey, we are not going to extract until about a month from now (honey bee awareness day demonstration) so I now have those frames in the freezer until the day before. With the number of SHBs present I didn't want to take a chance without the bees being able to keep the honey safe.

[SlickMick]

Deb, I really think you are better off using a floor trap as your main defence and the AJ in the frames to pick up those that have yet to move to the floor. In addition the floor trap acts as a bit of a heads up as it often picks up the occasional larva also.. lets you know that some of the shb are laying.

I have made all of mine and if the better half is handy he could do something similar to those on the following link. Use aluminum about .5mm thick but you do need to keep the beetle under control.

Mick

[DebCP]

Mick,

The only thing that worries me about the bottom traps is that I would loose my advantage of having sbbs for help with varroa. So far my bees are keeping the beetles out of the honey and brood. I am not sure what would be worse, continuing with beetles or gaining varroa...I hate pests.

Do you think if I increase the number of beetle eater traps it would make a big difference?

[BeeAware]

Wow! Seems the little rascals are everywhere. I had a friend in Florida who lost both hives due to SHB. They got so numerous that the bees abscounded.
I wish everyone lots of success in dealing with this pest. Frankly, I have never seen a beetle trap that would keep the beetles under control for long. It helps to have traps, but it is usually not enough. GardStar will not harm the bees as long as you do not let it get on or into the hive. I wait til dusk and then apply the GardStar to the ground near the hives with a watering can. I've never killed my bees with this method. However, there is research that indicates that even this may not be sufficient control since bees have been observed carrying the SHB larvae several yards from the hive and dropping them. Of course, they pupate in the untreated soil, emerge as adults and fly right back to a hive. I have placed some baited traps on the outside of my hives in hopes of catching some of these returning beetles. I also have some fipronil traps under the hives that are killing several beetles. So far, I only see a few in my hives, particularly the new splits and nucs.

[SlickMick]

Deb, if the sbb's are open to the air you are more than likely getting shb in through that way. That is a guess as I dont use sbb's so I suppose you have to make up your mind which is the bigger threat. We dont have varroa here so I cant tell how much damage they do in comparison to the beetle. However I do know first hand how much damage the beetle do.

I would put beetle eaters in the top of the brood box and also in every super as a precaution. I would only have the supers on that are being vigorously worked on.. ie add them when the bees need them .. 80/20 rule as empty supers present a heap of hiding places for the shb

Mick

[DebCP]

Thanks Mick,

Will order more beetle eater traps as Varroa is a pretty deadly pest for our bees here in this neck of the woods as well. I have been careful about not adding any more supers than necessary. I pulled two fully capped supers off yesterday and threw them in the freezer so I can extract next month. I gave the girls one more super to make up for the ones I removed as they had allready completely filled out the deep I gave them a few weeks ago...apparently the mangroves are giving me a good flow right now as they are still going gangbusters.

I check my hives weekly, and will evaluate again soon.

Deb

[DebCP]

I have placed some baited traps on the outside of my hives in hopes of catching some of these returning beetles. I also have some fipronil traps under the hives that are killing several beetles.

What do you mean by baited traps? If there is something else I can be using I'd love to hear about it. I'm also not familliar with fipronil traps.

[BeeAware]

What do you mean by baited traps? If there is something else I can be using I'd love to hear about it. I'm also not familliar with fipronil traps.

The baited traps are small plastic containers with drilled holes near the top and baited with an attractant. The beetles enter the container and drown in the liquid. I use two different attractants, both homemade. One is just apple cider vinegar, sugar, water and banana peels. This has worked the best. The other is honey with pollen in it. This one has trapped some beetles, but the other one seems to be working best. Fipronil is the insecticide found in many roach bait traps. I place one of these in one of the plastic containers so the bees cannot get to it. Beetles seem to be attracted to the bait, enter the container and are killed by the Fipronil. None of the traps are placed in the hive, but rather, under the hive or on the pallet near the hive.

All this and traps inside the hive, GardStar and pickling lime on the ground near the hives has so far kept the beetle population very low. If you do not wish to use permethrin (GardStar), then pickling lime, muriate of potash or plain salt can be used with some effectiveness. Apply liberally to the ground near the hives.

bees@mysite.com

[Rohe Bee Ranch]

How has the plain salt been working for anyone?

[DebCP]

The baited traps are small plastic containers with drilled holes near the top and baited with an attractant. The beetles enter the container and drown in the liquid. I use two different attractants, both homemade. One is just apple cider vinegar, sugar, water and banana peels. This has worked the best. The other is honey with pollen in it. This one has trapped some beetles, but the other one seems to be working best. Fipronil is the insecticide found in many roach bait traps. I place one of these in one of the plastic containers so the bees cannot get to it. Beetles seem to be attracted to the bait, enter the container and are killed by the Fipronil. None of the traps are placed in the hive, but rather, under the hive or on the pallet near the hive.

Do you have a photo of one of these traps. I understand the concept but have no idea how to set one of these up that would stop the beetles from getting back out of the trap. I know there is one type of a trap for inside the hive that you place apple cider vinegar in the middle and then it has two outer spaces filled with oil that the beetles drown in-do they work like that?

[possum51]

I went to a local feed store and bought 80 pounds of plain white salt and spread half of it around three hives. I will watch for the effects and report my findings. By the way, 80 pound of salt cost a little over $5.00.

[sc-bee]

The traps referred to above are the Mel and Sonny traps--- sandwich container type traps.
Here are a couple of links:

http://www.beeworks.com/informationcentre/small_hive_beetle.html

http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2007/05/small-hive-beetle-trap-saga.html

[pmichel]

Try AJ's beetle traps from Brushy Mtn. I've heard they really work!

[DebCP]

Try AJ's beetle traps from Brushy Mtn. I've heard they really work!

Already using those-need more to attempt to handle the influx of SHB as they are fierce this year. The beetle traps work well, but with the conditions this year are not adequate in themselves.

[hrogers]

Howdy Deb --

Google "Freeman Beetle Trap". He sells a well engineered bottom oil trap.

Dog

[dixie_beek]

Lots of SHB activity in south Mississippi. I have lost one new colony to them. I had prepared the hive location with GardStar before receiving the NUC. I had also installed the vegetable oil filled bottom board trap before installing the NUC. The new colony was dead slop soup within 2 weeks from SHB. Evidently, they were in the NUC and I didn't see them when I installed the NUC at night.

The local beek I bought the NUC from said it was my fault for using protein/pollen patties to feed bees. He cut me no slack on the price but bet your bippy I'll inspect any future NUCs before buying them.

After reading the above posts, I see I'd better get to work with more traps and other preventative maintenance as I'm seeing SHBs every time I check the hives.

One last note on the bottom board veggie oil trap. In the hive I lost to SHB, the trap was full of larvae but no adults. Why?

[SlickMick]

Dixie,

By the time you were getting heaps of larva in your bottom board oil trap the damage was well and truely done.

One shb adult lays some hundreds of eggs hence you may not see the beetle but you will see the larva when they get into your honey supers and by then it is generally too late. You are in shb territory so it is unlikely you will be able to get nucs that are shb free

Deb and Dixie,

The idea is to minimise the number of beetle in the hive and to eliminate places for them to lay.. pretty hard to do but necessary.

Reduce the entrance to the size that your guard bees can manage. My hives are presently working on entrances 3/8" high by 3"-6" long One entrance only.

Get flyscreen over any sbb's you have to prevent the beetle entering that way

Take off empty supers and freeze the frames. Replace super only when necessary and then only frame by frame as they are needed

Make sure that bees cover every frame fully

Dont put stickeys back on the hive but allow the cleaning to be done out of the hive.

Dont leave pollen patties around or in the hive too long.. I understand that 3 days is too long.

Get traps in

Monitor regularly. Check the brood box to make sure that the shb is not getting into the bee larva.

If you can control the shb adult in the hive you will control the larva. You were seeing the larva in the BB oil trap because they migrate to the light at the entrance where they fall to the ground to pupate.

If you see large numbers of larva in your BB oil trap remove your supers hose the larva into a drum of water and detergent and then freeze the frames. Dont let the larva enter the soil but make sure you kill them.

Hope that helps

Mick

[dixie_beek]

Thanks Mick, that all makes good sense.

[BeeAware]

I'm still seeing a few SHBs in some of my colonies so today I cut some squares from some old political signs, filled the corrugated space with boric acid and placed one on the bottom board and on top of the inner cover. I'm now expending more time and energy combating these little devils than I ever did with mites. My exterior traps and the in the hive traps are killing some beetles and I have found some dead larvae in the salt I piled around the hive entrance. What else can one do?

[DebCP]

Mick,

Thanks for the comprehensive list...helps put it all together. I had never considered putting in just the frames that are needed in a super, but that makes sense as well. I am doing a trapout (started tonight) and hoping to strengthen my weak hive which I am most worried about. The strong hive seems to have the little devils under control but I will monitor closely. I think I'm going to try the guardstar under the hives for overall prevention, but I do realize that if the larvae have survived to that point that my brood and honey is in danger. When I order the guardstar I'll go ahead and order more of the beetle eaters as I'm not ready to give up the SBB that helps with the varroa and air circulation.

BeeAware, I tried your Fipronil traps (ok trap) and am watching to see what happens with that outside the hive. I still have to cook up that concoction to see how that trap works as well. Will let you know how it helps.

[BeeAware]

Deb,

Hope you get those little devils under control. They are pestering me more so than the bees, I think. I just can't stand seeing them in the hives. My Fipronil traps are killing some beetles, some ants and some roaches. I have to replace them fairly regular as they get full of dead bugs pretty quick. Put in some boric acid traps today in a few nucs where I saw 4 or 5 beetles. By the way, I got some extra GardStar for sale if anyone needs it. I bought a case in order to get a price break and I don't need all of it. It is the 4 oz size. Good Luck.

bees@mysite.com

[SlickMick]

Hi Deb,

I dont use SBB's and frankly have never physically seen one in over 15 years. Photos, I have.

Being one who likes to "solve" problems I can't imagine that there is not a way of using a SBB to get your ventillation and at the same time use a screen that prevents the beetle from getting INTO your hive. Perhaps all it needs it the use of a screen of a suitable size, after all there are now bottom board oil traps that replace the entire floor. These may even be modified so that you can still ventillate your hive and control the SHB at the same time. As you are probably aware, the key to problem solving can be thinking outside the square.

As a final comment, if you are allowing uncontrolled access to the hive by the SHB through your SBB you are asking for trouble as this additional entry cant be managed by the bees like they do with a single entry of a suitable size.

Good luck with it Deb

Mick

[Dr.Wax]

This is a good idea........ PM one of the moderators to the
section "Diseases & Pests" and ask them to make it a "sticky"
that way it will stay at the top of the posts.:thumbsup:

Actually, the post you are referring to is on another site. I can provide that link to anyone who needs it. Maybe we can even get permission from the author to put it here.