# SHB has destroyed 10 hives



## Arkansas Beekeeper (May 23, 2010)

I have never seen anything like this to date. This has been a bad SHB year. Mild winter or bad luck? SHB were definitely worse than previous years. I have caught many with Swifer Pads and seemed though I was keeping them in check. Then I harvested. I put the wet supers back on the hive. Collected them in 2-3 days. Placed in stacks with paramoth. Opened my supers a week later Slimmed! Pulled out the frames. Froze what I could and gassed the rest with CO2 (which worked). Went to check one of my yards. Slimmed X 10 hives.

So far, I have lost 10 hives. Another today was balled up 20 feet up a tree. I am afraid that I am going to loose the whole yard. These were not weak hives They we not killer hives either but average. My plan was to overnight CheckMite Plus and treat remaining hives in yard and treat my other 3 yards. It looks like it isn't available.* Supply issue? Pulled from market?*
*
Any advice on stopping the invasion?*


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Are the bees in the shade or direct sunlight?


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## Arkansas Beekeeper (May 23, 2010)

80% sun. The the majority of hives lost have entrances away from sun. This sucks! Brushy Mountain shows CheckMite Plus. Have you used this before? Shade hits about 7PM.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

We do have a SHB problem here. I have a yard where they were really bad - to the point I gave up the yard. It had what we call bago sand and even with the bees in the sun - they just wiped out hives. I have found that clay locations really help on the SHB. its either to dry/hard for them to bury into - or to wet and drown them. Check the soil type and good luck.
I will have to check my shop but about 3 years ago I got something to treat for mites and I thank it was checkmite - I'll be home on the 11th and check - if so I'll get back to ya and see if I can get it to ya


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## cervus (May 8, 2016)

Don't discount the permethrin ground drench also. Doesn't do squat for the ones in the hive, but it does break their life cycle when they go back underground to pupate. We had em' bad earlier. Not so much now. I treated twice with the stuff from Tractor Supply. The 10% stuff. I just mixed it 4X to equal the active ingredient percentage in Gardstar. I think it helped a bunch. That and beetle jails seemed to knock the snot out of them.


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## Beebeard (Apr 27, 2016)

Not sure your equipment situation, but I run Screen BB with diatomaceous earth in a bottom slide out. Some of my SBB are factory with trays, some are homemade and sit over a solid bottom board. For those I use corrugated plastic sliders (political signs from your preferred party) Beetles and larvae drop into that stuff and perish within a day or two. DE is way easier than oil because it takes longer to foul, doesn't spill, and when it does foul, just scrape the mess out, put in a fresh layer and move on. Might not work for a super heavy infestation, but I had a bad one early this spring and this is what it looked like after 24 hrs of adding the DE tray:













Those buggers are all perished and the hive recovered well enough to produce 2 supers.


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

Sorry to hear about the SHB issues. Freeman-style bottom board traps work great for beetles.


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## Charlestonbee (Mar 26, 2015)

I had a new location for hives and split a hive into three nucs. All nucs got slimed. I still have three full hives at this location getting plastered by beetles. Shade and no way to move to sun. I applied guard star about 15 days ago and have put in beetle traps. Been killing as many as I can on cover. I don't run inner covers and this seems to help. I pull the lid off and squish running beetles(ab 20 each time). I've been checking traps weekly and numbers seem to be declining a bit. It seems like once they slime a couple hives like that they get a good hold and grow rapidly. The guard star seems to have helped break the cycle. I'll apply again in about ten days and keep trapping. I haven't opened hives except for to quickly take one trap out and replace. I squish beetles at this time. I haven't removed any frames because I don't want to give beetles even more chance to run on frames. Hives are super packed w bees. As was stated the beetle jails and guard star seem to be keeping it at least manageable.


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

Beebeard said:


> Not sure your equipment situation, but I run Screen BB with diatomaceous earth in a bottom slide out.


I'm just always paranoid bees will stir up some DE into the hive while fanning.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Check out the beetle blocker shim, a lot of great reviews on Facebook when clark was selling them himself now Blythewood carries them http://www.blythewoodbeecompany.com/product/beetle-blocker-shim/


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## Arkansas Beekeeper (May 23, 2010)

Thanks for all the advice. I am wondering if I caused this problem by putting on too many wet supers after harvest. I was lazy and thought I would save some time by putting 2-3 wet supers per hive on this yard. I recovered most in 48 hours then rest next day. My supers got slimmed in storage directly under paramoth. See above thread. Could this have caused a cascading effect by calling all SHB in county. I didn't notice an invasion when I pulled supers during harvest but now (on the slimmed hives) they are there in the hundreds. This occurred over a 2 week period It is almost as if someone opened up my hives and poorer them in. SO FAR, my other yards seem OK. I have 40 or so hives left. The Freeman trap or Beetle jail is going to be very costly for remaining hives.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

Arkansas Beekeeper said:


> Thanks for all the advice. I am wondering if I caused this problem by putting on too many wet supers after harvest. I was lazy and thought I would save some time by putting 2-3 wet supers per hive on this yard. I recovered most in 48 hours then rest next day. My supers got slimmed in storage directly under paramoth. See above thread. Could this have caused a cascading effect by calling all SHB in county. I didn't notice an invasion when I pulled supers during harvest but now (on the slimmed hives) they are there in the hundreds. This occurred over a 2 week period It is almost as if someone opened up my hives and poorer them in. SO FAR, my other yards seem OK. I have 40 or so hives left. The Freeman trap or Beetle jail is going to be very costly for remaining hives.


any chance there is another yard near yours that crashing, that's one method to get large amounts of SHB all at one time?


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

Sounds like you maybe should ground soak under the hive stands with an insecticide.


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

This year does appear to be a banner year for SHB in my area too, some hives are more affected than other in the same yard. I noticed a problem early on but they hit a lull (thought I'd gotten ahead of them) before the recent surge. Anything on the weak side is likely to be overrun, lost a couple of nucs early on. I'm running beetle jails in every hive; 2 traps in some of singles and some hives have 2 in every box, I'm getting the highest kill rate in the boxes closest in the brood boxes. Not winning the battle by any means but the bees are holding their own for now and I'm sure hoping this year is an anomaly. This isn't much help but I emphasize with your frustration.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

I've seen this sort of thing.
You pull your honey supers...they sit for a day or so, then you extract. By that time any shb that were in those harvested supers have laid eggs in them. By the time you put those supers back on hives...the little monsters are hatching...by the thousands. Voila...an epidemic!
I only pull the supers that I can extract in 24 hours or less. After extracting I let the bees scavenge them in the open. I know it isn't a perfect plan...but it keeps this sort of thing at bay.
Ground drench now is too late.
I have seen south Ga shb heavily infested hives saved using beetle barns with a fipronil based roach bait. Desperate times sometimes require desperate measures.
Good luck.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Also...when pulling honey supers to harvest...make certain that there is NO brood on any frames. Unprotected brood is a magnet for shb to lay their eggs.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

There's a nice freezer in the shed that will hold eight supers. 
Have been extracting quickly and slapping wet supers back onto hives within 24 hours. If I can't put them back fast I'll put them in the freezer for a couple days and either put them back on a hive or stack and protect them with moth crystals. 
That freezer is my best friend when it comes to pests like moths and shb. Might think about searching craigslist for a cheap freezer. Ten hives saved would be worth the cost. Sorry about your loss and thanks for sharing. I learned something.


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## Joe Mac (Jun 1, 2016)

Harley Craig said:


> Check out the beetle blocker shim, a lot of great reviews on Facebook when clark was selling them himself now Blythewood carries them http://www.blythewoodbeecompany.com/product/beetle-blocker-shim/


Thanks for this info, Harley. I just ordered 2 of them from Blythewood. The lady said they are selling quite a few of them. The video shows this blocker shim keeps out oodles of beetles, but it should be incorporated with a tray for oil or DE tray or something to kill the pests also. Keeping them out is great, but it would be a double whammy if they were eliminated. There were probably a couple hundred "live" beetles in the tray on the video. I'll see what I can come up with to incorporate a tray for extermination. No need for it to just be a "holding tank" for hundreds of live beetles.


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## Teipsum (Feb 20, 2014)

I am also in the south, memphis TN, and this week lost 4 hives out of 10 to SHB. It seems they came out of no where. Two of the hives were very strong, but they still got slimed. My best guess, is that this unrelenting heat is forcing too many bees to beard and stay out of the hives, giving SHB a chance to lay eggs by the thousands. And combined with our very mild winter, they came out of winter in greater numbers than normal. I am completely shocked, I have never had much of a problem with SHB, maybe 20 or so under the covers, but lately there have been hundreds, so much I burn them with a blow torch. I installed freeman traps and I am thinking about buying other mechanical traps such as the beetle baffle. Anything at this point.


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## Arkansas Beekeeper (May 23, 2010)

Update: Installed 12 Freeman bb. Witnessed a hive abscond while I was switching out BB. Picture of SHB catch after 1 1/2 hours after install.


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