hive beetles

[duck_nutt]

how many is too many?

yesterday I decided to go thru my hive...2 supers..I had added a strong cutout to a weak cutout I had had for about 3 weeks..after the newspaper combine, I took the bottom board out to clean all the newspaper debis away and noticed a few SHBs under the material....yesterday I looked at all the frames doing a check and saw beetles again...3 were running around on a frame i pulled. there were on the edge strips where the bees don't have wax yet...the bees would chase them across the wood. the beetle would run around to the other side, and another bee would take up the chase...the bes wouldn't follow them from one side to the other...

also on the screened bottom board, I noticed a few bees balled up in the corner...maybe 10 or so...i brushed them away only to discover a pile of SHBs bunched up into the corner....the bees seemed to have them trapped..maybe they were trying to overheat them, i don't know....

I killed as many as I could, but i feel like i'm probably doing litttle damage to the overall problem...

OH, also, on one of the frames I set down while doing an inspection, i noticed a cluster of bees around a new bee...small grey and fuzzy i looked closer and the little one was on top of a SHB...I guess they're teaching them young!

[jbford]

Get some traps on there. The small ones will suffice if you do not want to put a sbb with oil tray under them.

[AmericasBeekeeper]

The worst part is our bees feed their beetle prisoners - www.orsba.org/htdocs/download/SHB.pdf

[David LaFerney]

One beetle can lay a lot of eggs - and the eggs/larva are the real problem. You need to do something - or several things.

[beez2010]

Interesting article linked to by Americasbeekeeper. Mentioned in the article is the idea that hive inspections by beekeepers may actually cause the release of beetles being held captive by the bees. Gee, imagine that.

Just one more example of how humans "help" the bees to survive.

Chris Harvey--Teakwood Organics

www.thewarrestore.com

[peacekeeperapiaries]

Interesting article linked to by Americasbeekeeper. Mentioned in the article is the idea that hive inspections by beekeepers may actually cause the release of beetles being held captive by the bees. Gee, imagine that. [/url]

but if you dont inspect and catch that weak hive, failing queen, mite problems, or disease then the beetles you didnt know were there because you were not inspecting take over and kill the hive or they abscond leaving the beetles to create a wonderfull smelly mess...kind of a "catch 22" darned if ya dont, chastised if ya do...apparently