# War with the SHB Terroists!!



## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Oooh, a laser! Sounds like fun. I actually saw a patent for a hive laser dated 2010, although I can see a lot of practical problems implementing it. There was a thread here a few days ago for a SHB zapper proposed as a Kickstarter project.

I'm going to have power available at my front-yard hives and was wondering if anyone had tried a small keyboard vacuum cleaner? Maybe suck the little rascals up with a vacuum with a SHB-sized snout?

Now I guess, if the garage ever warms up, I need to grab my caulk gun and get out there to bead the corners.


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## mgstei1 (Jan 11, 2014)

Hopefully, someone will develop a better trap and we can manage these creatures. In the late 60's and early 70's all I ever had to deal with was wax moths. They were manageable if the hive was strong and you stored honey supers with 1 or 2 moth balls to a stack.
Beetles and mites are invaders from who knows where and who!


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I started a major bro-ha-ha in a discussion of Bt for wax moth control in another thread. Now they're arguing about moth balls, naphthalene versus paradichlorobenzene. Seems the former is bad and the latter less so? I'm convinced to try CO2 fumigation of stored comb.

The problem with varroa is that they're rarely as much in the open as the few pictures of them sitting on a thorax suggest. But SHB, well, now there's a good optical target. But we simply MUST have a camera on the device, otherwise we lose the great satisfaction of seeing them fry.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Phoebee said:


> I'm going to have power available at my front-yard hives and was wondering if anyone had tried a small keyboard vacuum cleaner? Maybe suck the little rascals up with a vacuum with a SHB-sized snout?


Answering my own question, there apparently are battery-operated beetle-vacs available, which meet my requirement of being emotionally satisfying for small-scale beekeepers to use, if not actually terribly effective.

"Battery operated vacuums are also available for beetle removal, however this form of control is for the small-scale beekeeper who only has a few bee colonies. These activities can give the beekeeper a tremendous since (sic) of gratification, but it can be a futile effort when colonies are overrun with beetles."

http://vincemasterbeekeeper.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/small-hive-beetle-ipm-hood.pdf

And it tells me that the SBB system we bought (one for each hive) are equipped with Freeman Beetle Traps. Looked insidious to me, and evidently will kill SHB and varroa if they are clumsy, and will work with a corrugated board smeared with petroleum jelly as well. We may not see them drown, but we get to count the corpses.


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## Mbeck (Apr 27, 2011)

Phoebee said:


> And it tells me that the SBB system we bought (one for each hive) are equipped with Freeman Beetle Traps. Looked insidious to me, and evidently will kill SHB and varroa if they are clumsy.


Just waiting for the "that selection process leave graceful acrobatic SHB to breed." Comment


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Mbeck said:


> Just waiting for the "that selection process leave graceful acrobatic SHB to breed." Comment


Vincemasterbeekeeper's writeup suggests another way to deal with SHB. Turns out the larvae leave the hive, drop out the entrance, and burrow in the ground to complete their pupation stage. They don't go far. There are pesticides to deal with them in the ground, but I'm wondering what happens if I salt the ground inside my bee cage. We already have salt in the ground nearby for a salt lick. 

But then I won't see the bodies. But if that is effective, they'll never evolve grace.


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## Wadep4186 (Feb 8, 2014)

SHB !!!! hi guys I am a student of the fatbeeman I run the traps like he makes in all my hives I have very few SHB he has videos on you tube shows how to make them. and its cheep!!


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## BigGun (Oct 27, 2011)

I saw somewhere a guy was using an ear cleaning vacuum to catch them. As seen on tv. Lol


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## jredburn (Feb 25, 2012)

SHB hate light, thats a well documentated fact. If you take the top cover and the inner cover away and replace them with a 1/4" Plesiglass cover the beetles will move to the bottom of the hive. Especially if the bottom board is painted black. Put your beetle traps down there and the beetles will not be a problem.
I use a variant of the oil bath trap. I use glue from the people that make sticky board insect traps.


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## GaSteve (Apr 28, 2004)

Every yard I have seems to have 1 or 2 hives that attract all the beetles. Once you know which hives they are, just have your dust buster (with crevice tool) ready to suck them all up.

http://www.target.com/p/dirt-devil-...cuum-bd10250/-/A-10296714#prodSlot=medium_1_3


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

GaSteve said:


> Every yard I have seems to have 1 or 2 hives that attract all the beetles. Once you know which hives they are, just have your dust buster (with crevice tool) ready to suck them all up.
> 
> http://www.target.com/p/dirt-devil-...cuum-bd10250/-/A-10296714#prodSlot=medium_1_3


OK, next question, and it is important. After you have the nasty things in your dust-buster, THEN what? Some sort of horrible death, like an old blender, I hope. And nothing so sorry as just freezing them?


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## GaSteve (Apr 28, 2004)

Most get a merciful freezing or starve in the dirt devil. For a more satisfying demise, I suppose they could be maimed and poured on a fire ant mound to be eaten alive.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I like that! Sadly, no fire ants, but we've got some big black ones that I've seen haul off bark beetle larvae.


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## Kiran (Jan 27, 2014)

What about placing strips of cut up glue traps or scotch tape _above_ the inner cover (on the screen) to catch SHB as the bees chase them through the screened inner cover?
I am not sure if this would work, it definitely would not if SHB don't fit through the screen.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Kiran, I'd suggest cutting up strips of flypaper to put in places bees can't reach, but on condition that I get to be there to video you trying it. The first few experiments would likely compare to some uproarious scenes from the Three Stooges.


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## Kiran (Jan 27, 2014)

> Every yard I have seems to have 1 or 2 hives that attract all the beetles. Once you know which hives they are, just have your dust buster (with crevice tool) ready to suck them all up.


What about the bees? Won't the dust buster suck them up (if they fit) or injure them (if the don't)?


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