A story about SHB

[max2]

SHB came to Queensland about 8 or so years ago and they have spread really fast.
On the 12. 12. 09 I took honey off my hives but one had insufficient capped honey and I left it.
Forward 10 days: I noticed a brown liquid oozing out of the entrance. I opened the hive to find only a small number of bees but loads of SHB plus maggots galore ( from the SHB). The honey had fermented and the smell was not very pleasant.
It took me 1/2 a day to clean up the mess. The story goes that bees will not touch equipment affected by SHB. I cut all the foundation out and bagged it for the garbage. I soaked the frames ( to kill any beatles, eggs and larve) cleaned the frames, scrubbed them with Sugar Soap and rinsed them with a pressure hose - the bees are stiil hanging around these apparently very clean frames. To me it looks like they like the smell.
There is a lot of work being done with traps and also natural fungi and spraying the soil around the hive ( which i will not do).
I would expect that it will be very difficult to split off nuc's without them sliming. I have heard many such stories from more coastal beek's but this is my first experience with a relatively strong hive.
I keep my bees in the poultry yard and till now it has helped - or so I believe - to keep SHB numbers down, I see some but few. They must be able to build-up really fast.

[sjbees]

> The story goes that bees will not touch equipment affected by SHB.

Not true, according to "Notes from Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation Field Day
University of Western Sydney July 8th 2009" in http://www.beekeepers.asn.au/TAB/TAB09octnov.pdf

Recovering combs damaged by SHB: Four
methods of cleaning combs before replacing for a
week in the middle of a super in an active hive;
soaking in water for 2 hours, hosing, cold water
rinse and no treatment. There was no difference
in the outcome, the bees cleaning all combs
equally well.

[Myron Denny]

I have been told to get some corrigated plastic that you put crisco in the holes on one end, fill it with borax and then seal it with crisco. the small hive beetle eat the borax and die.
I have also been told you can put borax in a "CD-Rom" case and seal it with crisco, supposedly the crisco will draw the SHB into the CD-R case, they will eat the borax a die. I would keep the holes in the CD-R box small enough a bee cannot crawl in. A CD-R case is the case that your computer backup disc comes in. I am told Staples Office Supply have these.

[Ted n Ms]

I had a small nuc that got infected by shb last summer. I shook the bees out and placed the frames in the deep freeze for two days. After letting them thaw out a half day i put them on other hives with no problems. They cleaned them right up.
I would think that you have mix in some powdered sugar, crisco and borax.

[SlickMick]

Unfortunately Max by leaving a frame with uncapped honey (and I imagine the emptied stickies from the extraction) in your hive you have given the shb the opportunity to take your hive out. You cannot leave stickies or uncapped frames in the hive and expect the colony to defend itself and do the job of cleaning up at the same time. You really need to have the stickies cleaned up outside the hive so that they are put in clean.

Whilst I am only a hobbiest I have had the same experience as you have and now only return frames to the hive after they are clean and when they are needed.

Mick

[LT]

What is the best kind of borax to use? Where do you get it? Thanks

[Myron Denny]

I was told to use 40 Muleteam Borax, the very same stuff you use to sweeten the babies diapers with. The tape case is just about 1/4" thick, I would guess put some of the borax in the middle and the crisco on the out edge. When I try it I intend to place one trap on the bottom board and one trap on the top of the brood frames.

How about some of you beekeepers in the southern hemisfear (Austrailia - South America) doing this and relaying the answers about your success or lack of it to us in the "iceage-icebowl"
Myron Denny

[max2]

Unfortunately Max by leaving a frame with uncapped honey (and I imagine the emptied stickies from the extraction) in your hive you have given the shb the opportunity to take your hive out. You cannot leave stickies or uncapped frames in the hive and expect the colony to defend itself and do the job of cleaning up at the same time. You really need to have the stickies cleaned up outside the hive so that they are put in clean.

Whilst I am only a hobbiest I have had the same experience as you have and now only return frames to the hive after they are clean and when they are needed.

Mick

I never put back uncapped honey back but, yes, the stickies go back into the hive they came fro. I believe to leave them outside to be clraned up is actally not legal in Queensland? and I would be concerned that this would encourage robbing?
I had no problem with putting stickies back into a strong hive.
What experience have others had?