Hive beetles

[tecumseh]

usc writes:
Based on my experience with my bees and SHBs there ain't going to be no hearding of SHBs. My girls are not country girls rounding up cattle and I doubt any of the Italians are SHB Girls! SHBs look for very dark corners to hide and live while in the hive (like cockroaches). So I believe they are just naturally eating the crisco and then going into the dark openings.

tecumseh:
well I would suggest to ya' usc that my italian most definitely will run groups of the shb like a herd of cattle (or more like shelties herding up sheep) along the edge of the bottom board... seen it with my own eyes and more than once I might add. some (I have no idea if this could be a genetic predisposition) will run them right out the front entrance... where I on occasions sometime find small clumps of shb hanging just outside the front entrance under the bottom board. I have nothing else here but italian of some kind or form.

ps... as a trapping device with no poison or lure: I have use one of those plastic (vinyl I think) single page sheet covers which I laid on the top bars, place a couple of very small nails (trim nails) along the slitted opening. I came back a week later and found a goodly number of shb hiding between the plastic sheet (quite evidently to get away from the bees). squishing them with my hive tool was quite delightful. I tried the same thing on the bottom board, but found the girls quickly propolized up the opening in the plastic sheet.

[beemandan]

1. Does it work the same if I am using a screened bottom board. Will the beetles go down there. Never really looked. I usually only see them in the honey supers. .

Many of my hives have screened bottom boards. I see shb along the bottom edges of the brood box frequently even with the screened bottoms.

2. I guess it should only be done at the bottom of the hive in case the boric acid with spilled for some reason.

I think spilled boric acid, even on a solid bottom board would kill bees. A screened bottom would reduce that threat.

Does anyone know where to buy bulk boric acid?

[USCBeeMan]

usc writes:
Based on my experience with my bees and SHBs there ain't going to be no hearding of SHBs. My girls are not country girls rounding up cattle and I doubt any of the Italians are SHB Girls! SHBs look for very dark corners to hide and live while in the hive (like cockroaches). So I believe they are just naturally eating the crisco and then going into the dark openings.

tecumseh:
well I would suggest to ya' usc that my italian most definitely will run groups of the shb like a herd of cattle (or more like shelties herding up sheep) along the edge of the bottom board... seen it with my own eyes and more than once I might add. some (I have no idea if this could be a genetic predisposition) will run them right out the front entrance... where I on occasions sometime find small clumps of shb hanging just outside the front entrance under the bottom board. I have nothing else here but italian of some kind or form.

ps... as a trapping device with no poison or lure: I have use one of those plastic (vinyl I think) single page sheet covers which I laid on the top bars, place a couple of very small nails (trim nails) along the slitted opening. I came back a week later and found a goodly number of shb hiding between the plastic sheet (quite evidently to get away from the bees). squishing them with my hive tool was quite delightful. I tried the same thing on the bottom board, but found the girls quickly propolized up the opening in the plastic sheet.

tecumseh,

I don't doubt you one bit. But I have watched the SHBs and the bees basically walk right past each other with no reactions by either. I have seen the bees kinda bump into them and move around them like they are just another bee. What I have seen has been on supers not a bottom board. Perhaps it is different on the bottom board.

Perhaps the amount of beetles in the hive has something to do with the bees behavior with them. Mine are not infested with the beetles. I might find 2 or 3, maybe 5 or 10 at the most at any one time.

I am not a veteran beekeeper so I have a lot to learn and I guess that I am showing my ignorance.

[Bizzybee]

I have never really paid much attention to the bottoms of the BB's. I would guess that it may be similar to what I find at my screened inner covers and that would be beetles hiding out above the wire around the edges on the wood frame. The bees typically keep the beetles pushed up in that area and I'm just guessing that they will do the same on the other end of the hive.

When I pop a top on a hive that has them, most of them of course scurry to get out of the light. Some dive off in the hive while others seem to avoid entering the hive at all costs. They are quickly disposed of with the ole hive tool, all the while those that dove off into the hive start coming back up with the bees hot on their tails so that they can meet mr. hive tool themselves.

I don't have many italian bees left that resemble a true italian much anymore. Not for any reason other than how I have been breeding the bees. Most are now predominately carnie to a more even mix of the two. Some russian and russian mixes in a couple of yards. I can only say what I have observed over time with the beetles. And that is that I have consistently saw more beetles in the italian hives than in the carnie/russian hives including the mixes. But at best, I see varying degrees of rejection of the beetles across any given yard. Some hives typically have little to no beetles on one end while some have plenty. I would say that the model would fit well into the typical bell curve.

Knock on wood, and this year may prove different but I still have yet to loose a hive to these devils. Including all three races of bees.

I have noticed on a couple of yards where the bees set under a canopy of trees that there is a pretty good number of skinks that hang out under the top covers on the screens. And I see them scurry out from under the hives if I'm moving things around. I see very few beetles in those hives and I can't help but wonder if they are waiting for free meals to be chased up out of the hives? Maybe they are dining on an occasional bee? I figure if they are, they can't eat to many and everybody has to eat somewhere. Seems like an awful strange coincidence that they are where the beetles aren't though.

I know the traps you folks are talking about. Don showed them to me some years ago. I tried them out during one season and didn't see any affect, some weren't even touched. But from what I've seen in my hives I don't really see that the beetles spend much time inside the hives to get to them. I guess if you keep bees differently than I do, probably most do, and you have a ready presence of beetles inside your hives, they would probably work well.

If nothing else it helps get rid of those stinking political signs all over the road sides!!

[tecumseh]

ken:
it does appear to me that the degree to which a hive will or will not tolerate the shb is quite variable. on any number of hives (especially those with few shb which fall along the numbers you describe in your prior post) they do pretty much as you have described. on others generally with more robust worker bee numbers I have seen the herding like behavior, but only on the bottom board and never at the top of the stack.

I would also suggested that gappy equipment (ie rotten or poorly made) is perhaps a problem that encourages the shb. in conjunction with this concern I have not tried plastic type frames due to the many hiding places they provide for the shb.

as a EXTREMELY casual observation bees that seem to proposlize quite a bit seem to manage the shb better than those that don't. the bees we have here in the us of a are quite mixed (mongrols largely with the idea of pure bred bees being largely illusionary imho).. however the northern european races did propolize more than their southern european cousins.