beetle blaster, never sits flat, creates more problems

Ours do the same thing. If they were a bit narrower they would be flush with the frame top bars.

This seems like such an obvious problem with such an easy fix! I always put these in my 10 frame brood boxes and never in my 9 frame honey supers.

I agree. They are a bit too wide. I put mine between frame 1 and 2, or between frame 9 and 10. I spread those frames apart a little so the trap will fit in it. I don't have, or rather haven't had yet, a very bad SHB problem. I have my traps baited with pear juice, cooking oil and vinegar. I have had the traps in my hives for nearly a year and I only have a few beetles in them. Some traps have none. If I find one that isn't sitting flat on the frames, I run my hive tool, on top of and around the edge of the trap before removing it. I have seen beetles get below the lip of the trap. I can squish any that get under a lip by doing that.

flyingbrass said:

Cutts beetle blaster traps never sit right in my 10 frame equipment...."!

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I don't like them either, but because they just don't work that well. They're better than nothing and I do use them in some nucs, but I think for a regular hive you're far better off using a screened bottom board with oil trap. Green bee hives out of Alabama sells one that works very well.

Agreed that they don't seem to sit well in the hive. I place mine between frames 1-2 or 9-10. The larger gap leads to some really thick frames of stores and a bit of wonky comb. The traps catch some beetles, which I guess is better than none.

My biggest problem is propolization. To move the outer frames, I need to slip my hive tool under the edge of the trap all around its perimeter. I've sliced open more than one trap by doing this, and twice have slimed my hive. For this reason, I tend to keep very little oil in the traps. After propolization, the next issue is the fact that the volume of liquid in the traps increases over time. I don't believe there are any ventilation issues in my hives but some process, physical or bee-initiated, leads moisture to accumulate in the traps.

I use them I scrape the top bars clean and separate the frames a bit to put them in then push the frames closer. When inspecting I pry the frames with BB apart a bit before removing them works well but not perfect some hives I get a lot some hives non.

how hard to just redo them more narrow?

check with the guys that make em

I used the better beetle blaster and i have caught beetles but the oil can be a real pain and a liability if you spill it...i put the traps inthe middle hive-what a mistake...they glued it to the bottom of the box above and OH what a scare.....they are just too messy for a klutz. I wonder if i put a dab of roach bait in there if it would work better.

I bought a bunch of beetle blasters a couple of years ago when one of the hives had 2 frames with stores slimed by the SHB larva. We put 2 or more traps in each box, spending quite a bit of time maintaining the traps.

The following year (2013) and so far this year I have not used a single trap anywhere (6 colonies now), and have not had ANY slimed frames. What I do is make sure that wherever there are stores or brood I have a lot of bees. I do see SHB's, but they are kept under control by the bees which totally outnumber them.

Phil