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Little Black Bugs ... FYI

2K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  BenjaminM 
#1 ·
Little Black Bugs

These bugs look like half-pint solid black Ladybugs.
A Beekeeper told me he has a problem with them in his hives.

I have had a problem with them in my hair: poisons didn’t work. I found an easy cure in my second attempt to rid myself of them: alcohol. I washed my hair in rubbing alcohol, and I have never been bothered by them again!

I contracted them doing construction work when I was pulling down a ceiling in Shickshinny, PA.

A friend of mine tried to rid himself of them for five years with no success. He phoned me out of desperation from VA and I gave him the cure.

I wanted to tell the beekeeping community about this cure to prevent the use of poisons that might leach into the honey.

The alcohol will evaporate from the hives without leaving a residue: the poisons will not.

My eye doctor informed me about the problem he was having with these bugs in his Beehives. I gave him the cure but he dismissed me, and my ideas without any thought.

I felt that I had to tell somebody!
 
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#2 ·
Welcome to Bessource!

While washing your hair with alcohol likely does kill "bugs" without any harm to a human head, the same cannot be said about using alcohol to wash the inside of a hive. Remember honey bees are "bugs"!!

Contact with liquid alcohol and a bee's body is likely to result in a dead bee.

Bees breathe through a complex structure of network of tracheas and air sacs. Oxygen is vacuumed into the body through openings on each segment (spiracles) by the expansion of the air sacs, then the spiracles are closed and air sacs are compressed to force the air into smaller tracheas, which become smaller and smaller until individual tubules reach individual cells.

More here: Anatomy of the Honey Bee – Bee Health
 
#4 ·
I am extremely dubious of this post, but I'll take it at face value.

1) I take it you're not a bee keeper, as you discussed your beekeeping friend.

2) The insect you described is a small hive beetle.

3) Small hive beetles will not live in your hair. Sure, you could have one fall on your clothes while handling a hive, and find it several hours later, but they are not surviving on your scalp.

4) Isopropyl alcohol is fatal to bees. IPA is used to conduct a mite wash, in which 1/2 cup of bees (roughly 300 I think) is poured into a container and the mites are killed and fall loose to be counted. The bees die was well.

5) Ingesting honey which is adultered with a toxic compound is not what one would call a wise decision.
 
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