Today when I did my inspections to my 2 hives, I found 4-5 SHBs in each. I quickly killed them and tossed them out, but they were in quite the tricky spot. I found them in the top medium I added 2 weeks ago. In between the frame top bar and the hive body where they rest. The space is 1/8 or less for most of the frames, so the bees couldn't get to them and when I found them, they were all huddled there with a couple bees looking at them. The bees usually glue those up nicely but I guess they haven't got around to it yet on these new boxes as they are busy with building comb.
The experience left me with a couple of questions on the Hows and Whys:
1. Should the number of beetles raise any alarms? 5 per hive but only hiding in the gaps of 1-2 frames on just the top medium. I didn't check the bottom deep or the bottom board of the hive. Should I have?
2. When the bees finally get around to glueing all the frames end bars shut, will any beetles trapped in there die? or do they eat that stuff?
3. What do they eat? the honey? pollen? wax?
4. How exactly do bees get rid of SHB? drag and drop outside?
On my end, is there anything I can do to prevent it in the future? Outside of making new frames/boxes and having them mesh up perfectly. Is this only a real problem for custom equipment?
Any answers would be greatly appreciated.
The experience left me with a couple of questions on the Hows and Whys:
1. Should the number of beetles raise any alarms? 5 per hive but only hiding in the gaps of 1-2 frames on just the top medium. I didn't check the bottom deep or the bottom board of the hive. Should I have?
2. When the bees finally get around to glueing all the frames end bars shut, will any beetles trapped in there die? or do they eat that stuff?
3. What do they eat? the honey? pollen? wax?
4. How exactly do bees get rid of SHB? drag and drop outside?
On my end, is there anything I can do to prevent it in the future? Outside of making new frames/boxes and having them mesh up perfectly. Is this only a real problem for custom equipment?
Any answers would be greatly appreciated.