AJ's beetle trap full of live beetles!

[tlynn]

I did an inspection today after 6 weeks of not going down to the brood boxes - went into one hive and as soon as I pulled the queen excluder beetles started spilling out of the trap.  It had dried up and was the hiding place of seemingly the entire hive's population of beetles.  The bees must have been corralling them all this time.  I quickly pulled it out as beetles began running up my hand and a few taking flight.  I ran into the house with them and dropped them into a mason jar.  There must have been 75-100 beetles in there.  Went through the hive and saw maybe one or two more after that.  So I guess the moral is to make sure those traps stay full of oil, because the SHB really like them!

Also I take a piece of thick pond liner and lay it over the top of the trap.  This seems to make a better hiding place for them so they run under and drop in.

[sc-bee]

>Also I take a piece of thick pond liner and lay it over the top of the trap.  This seems to make a better hiding place for them so they run under and drop in.

It is not mentioned anywhere when you buy the traps --- but AJ suggest you cover the traps with a piece of linoleum etc. My thoughts are --this seems to give the beetles a place to try and hide from the bees and therefore draws them toward the trap

;) I'll have to look for some pond liner. The last thing I used was a piece of old tire inner tube.