I had been having problems with a dead queen from a package of bees. I re-queened the hive and last week and things were looking good. Lots of worker brood, eggs and larva. I checked the hive the other day and was horrified to find that all the brood, larva, eggs, honey, etc were destroyed and the comb that was left was infested with Small Hive Beetle larva. Most of the comb is ripped up and slimmed.
I am wondering what the best way of cleaning this mess up is? I have considered giving the comb to the chickens and letting them feast on the larva. I want to made sure I clean everything so I can reuse it next year. The foundation is plastic.
Any ideas?
I used plastic foundation in Alabama just because of what happened to you. Scrape off the wax with your hive tool and use it again. The bees will clean it up.
Just a thought, melt it down, strain it, and paint it on your foundation frames - if you have them.
How do I strain the maggots, honey, slime and other junk from the pure wax?
I have heard that ants clean it up pretty good. Then the bees can reuse the comb.
I take a little scoop from screen wire and sift it out right after I cut the heat off.
Use a hose to wash out the honey and pollen. Even some of the larvae will wash out. Then put it back in a hive and the bees will finish it.
Jim
Lost a new cutout to SHB.
I used 5-gal bucket full of water to dip each frame (each side immersed a couple of minutes) to drown all larvae ... I didn't want them wriggling off to pupate. Boy are those maggots fast. Really gross, but so sad, it's like cleaning up after your kids when they throw up. Gotta do it. The poor bees were making the mourning cry.
I used a 2nd bucket to 2nd-rinse the comb/frames. Bagged the somewhat clean comb and put in the freezer. Then put dish soap in the yucky buckets, swirled, and dumped. Hopefully it's all just biomass now, nothing alive.
It was getting dark, so I put a 2nd, clean hive body on top the infected one with a couple clean frames, so the last thousand bees and queen [if still there] can move up off the icky hive bottom and I'll finish tomorrow.
Question: where do the other bees go? 90% left. Did they jump ship?
FG,
I strongly suspect that they left and took the queen with them. The remaining bees are usually bees that were out in the field during the abscond and the bees that just hatched and are probably still hatching. The bees that left will try to start a new hive.
How much soap did you put in the water containing the larvae? It needs to bee significant and you need to leave them in the water until they drown. It takes quite a long time. Usher wise you just poured them on the ground where they will burrow down and pupate. If they are a bit small when you do this they turn into small beetles.
Jim Altmiller
After rinsing the frames, the larvae soaked in the water 20 to 30 minutes. Can they hold their breath that long? Nothing seemed to be floating. I used only a few teaspoons of dish soap per bucket, added after the comb & frames were washed. The idea being to not get soap on bee-surfaces.
BUT...checking back this afternoon, I found a dozen larvae in 6 shovelfuls. Evidently, they can hold their breath that long. I combed what dirt I could, but as insurance I've ordered $36 worth of heterorhabditis indica, the beneficial nematodes that fasten onto hive beetle larvae.
I may still have the Q from this cutout. Today at dawn, a baseball-sized cluster was on the clean comb I put in the top corner of that super....right where I hoped they'd go. Since all the cutout's brood was unclean from SHB, I put them in a clean nuc, together with a frame of brood from another hive and some water sponges. They're locked up for protection for a short time.
The [now tiny] cutout colony seems happy in the little nuc with robbing screen.
Spoke with a local friend about not succeeding in drowning the SHB larvae. His technique: pour the bucket onto midday 120 degree pavement. If the car tires don't get them, the larvae travel six feet, max, before withering up.
With having metal oil trays under my hives, I sometimes put the trays with larvae in them, on top of a hive in full sun. They start squirming pretty quick, trying to find something to crawl under. As long as they are exposed, they die pretty quick in warm weather.
Jim Altmiller
I sit down with the water hose and a nozzle and rinse the snot out of my woodenware. Not just the frames, but, the box lid bottom ALL of it. When I think I've got it good enough I do it some more. Let it dry out and reuse it.. When the beetles have run off the bees I have noticed that a large amount of my comb is shot. So I use the fine spray to rinse out the comb and cut out what needs to come out. This works for me..
Sorry forgot to talk about larvae. yeah it takes a LONG time for them to die...I do visual inspect (painstakingly) each frame...I HATE SHB!