I recently found that my 2 nucs had shb. They were weak and eventually lost. My 1 really strong hive has not shown any yet. These were all in fairly close proximaty to each other. I took the remains of the nucs across the yard and took them apart, took out any frames with dead bees or decay and burned them. the clean frames I put in garbage bags which I will deep freeze. Should I and how can I clean out the boxes, tops, etc for reuse? Bleach and water? How concerned should I be about the strong hive getting it now and what precautions should I take?
As long as you have removed all larvae from the nucs you should be okay just make sure all SHB are out of the box. In your location if any remain in an unoccupied box they will freeze over the winter.
I had some nucs fly into a canal and kill the bees inside then SHB moved in to finish off what was left. I just cut all the mess out then pressure washed the nuc boxes with regular H2O worked fine
Keith
I have a question...I just checked my hive to find a whole lot of SHBs. Sucks! This season was a complete failure for me. I want to start clean in the spring, and I'm not sure if the bees will die off over winter. What should I do if they do make it and are infested with beetles?
Got the same problem myself.
Last inspection before this one, I only saw like 6 SHB tops and both hives looked good.
Did my recent inspection over the weekend to get the girls ready for winter and both hives were like covered. Just about every frame would have like 2 or 3 SHB on them. I crushed as many as I could, but was caught by surprise. So tomorrow when I go to top off my feeders will put out some AJ Beetle Traps again.
But is it normal to see an explosion of SHB at this time of year like this?
I dont know about "time of year" issues, still new myself. But i do know that a strong hive can fend off SHB as long as you use a trap.
I saw maybe 10-15 beetles in my hive a few weeks after getting it. I ordered a west trap, added a screened bottom board, and since then i havent seen any.
*I built my screened bottomboard to allow a west trap teay to be put underneath from behind, so i wasnt hanging out in front of the hive fighting with getting the tray out of the entrance.
I'm in Fl. so i have bug problems year round. It does seem as though SHB, wax moths and grasshoppers have been worse lately. I know grasshoppers don't bother the bees, but they sure can decimate a garden as fast as wax moths in a weak hive.
JoelinGa
I am north of you in Rome, and there is an increase in SHB in fall, as others have posted on the forums. I have had huge increases but I use Stewart's patented-small-screwdriver to smash the SHB into submission. I open my hives every week with NO smoke and smash. I plan on making some traps out of CD cases, but have not gotten to it. Right now I do not have a problem with SHB because I smash and smash and smash, but they keep coming! I keep smashing. I feed them to the bees once I smash! It keeps the pyschologist bills low.
Quote from: ArmucheeBee on October 13, 2008, 08:12:24 PM
JoelinGa
I am north of you in Rome, and there is an increase in SHB in fall, as others have posted on the forums. I have had huge increases but I use Stewart's patented-small-screwdriver to smash the SHB into submission. I open my hives every week with NO smoke and smash. I plan on making some traps out of CD cases, but have not gotten to it. Right now I do not have a problem with SHB because I smash and smash and smash, but they keep coming! I keep smashing. I feed them to the bees once I smash! It keeps the pyschologist bills low.
LOL. Had a good laugh reading that. I was out today putting the feeders on and threw a couple of the AJ Beetle Traps in the hives. But while I had them open, I was smashing away at what I could get. They were all over the bottom of my inner cover, had a bunch of workers there too, so I was smashing as soon as they would get to an open area. Don't even know how many I killed today, but it's been crazy as my hives have been doing well with dealing with them till now on their own.
It's the ones on the comb that drive me crazy, can't figure out how to get those #%@%@ without doing damage heh.
Needle nose pliers. They work on SHB, moths, and carpenter bees nectaring on butterfly bushes right now. I hold the patent to those too.
Do the beetles look like small black ladybugs? I saw some of these while extracting a couple days ago. I looked at a picture of a hive beetle but it looked like it had 3 segments to its body. Whattaya think?
your friend,
john
This is what they look like...
(http://i317.photobucket.com/albums/mm371/wdhood/Bees_hivebeetleMED.jpg)
OK. That's weird. I had a frame in my hand this afternoon and a ladybug landed on it and at the same time I saw a SHB and yes they are just alike. The SHB is smaller but the same shape.
In Georgia it's typical to have a surge of SHB in the fall. My hives which were all beetle free all summer now have beetles in each one.
I use the "DEATH by HIVE TOOL" technique every time I open the hives.
I do have a mouth aspirator that one of my beekeeping friends John Jones recommends - I haven't tried it yet - can't master the put the aspirator in the mouth under the hood process yet. But the strong hives keep them contained under the inner cover for the most part - I rarely see an SHB on the frames in the boxes.
Linda T in Atlanta
Yep,......I have hive beetles :'(...I better read up on them.
your friend,
john