# Insane Number of Small Hive Beetles!!!



## Ron5252 (Jan 19, 2011)

So I had the chance to inspect my two remaining colonies this week and was overwhelmed by the number of SHB I saw in both hives. Both hives were super populated with bees. One had two frames of eggs and two frames of capped brood while the other had 4 full frames of capped brood, three full of eggs and a frame of capped drone brood. I wintered these two hives with empty hive top feeders on top and as soon as I pulled these off I knew there was a huge infestation issue. I smashed 20 on the bottom of the first feeder and 16 on the second. As I checked frames there were literally hundreds running around on the frames. 

To give a little back ground I had 9 hives going into last fall but lost 7 due to these two surviving hives robbing the others. Three of the seven were weak and I was planning to combine them. I had surgery and was not able to tend to the hives for over 6 weeks and found the seven hives totally robbed out by the end of September. I am assuming all the SHB made their way two the two remaining hives and wintered there. 

So my question is this: Right now I placed 6 reusable beetle traps with vegetable oil in each hive to try to knock the population down. Does anyone have any other suggestions to help knock the infestation down without using pesticides? I am nervous as this many beetles open the door for total destruction of the hives if they lay eggs. Last year I split one of these same hives into three additional colonies and allowed them to raise their own queens, one is the second colony that survived. The other two were wiped out as the beetles breed and the larva destroyed the brood combs. This is one of the mildest winters for this area and I assume this has contributed to the quantity of beetles. 

So to sum up my entire post, I am looking for any suggestion to battle these demons as they are my biggest issue for the past two years.


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## BeeTax (Dec 27, 2011)

I had a new hive become overrun with SHB this past fall after about 2 weeks. I put on a screened bottom board with a full sized tray of vegetable oil underneath, transferred the frames to a new box, killing all the beatles I could find in the process. After killing all the beatles I could find each time I opend the box, the hive was free of SHB by the end of November, and so far, thankfully, remains so.

Good luck, those things are awful.


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## Daddy'sBees (Jul 1, 2010)

You probably will either have to use pesticides and save this hive or NOT and it probably will die. Try this approach: http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...s-and-Hive-Beetles-In-Feb&p=758281#post758281


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

It's spring in your area. What would happen if you moved the queen over to a new box and shook all the bees in front of the new box so they would go in. Then froze all the honey frames and gave it back to the hive. I guess brood would be sacrificed but wouldn't the hive come back faster if it didn't have a serious SHB problem?


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

Find a shallow plastic tray about 10"x20" and make a wood frame out of 1x2's or whatever you have lying around the shop that fits around the plastic tray. Get some 1/4 inch screen and attach it to one side of the wooden frame, I used roofing nails. Put about 1/2 inch of soapy water in the plastic tray, place the screened in frame over the tray and you are ready to wipe out the small hive beetles in your hive. All you need to do is as you pull a infested frame out of the hive bang it on the screening, flip it over and do the other side. The bees bounce off the screen and fly away while the SHB fall through the screen into the soapy water and drown. It is quick and it allows you to clean out the SHB as you inspect the frames.
Give it a try, you don't need to hit the hive with any chemicals or mitacides.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

What about the eggs or larvae in the honey? I forget which one. You would have to keep doing this on schedule to knock them down, no? That is why I said freeze the frames.


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

Ace, The bees will clean out the SHB eggs as they go about thier daily hive cleaning. They will also clean out any small beetle larva in a hive. I have had to do this to one badly infested hive three times in one week. Think I killed almost 1,000 SHB total but after the third inspection there were only three or four left. It helps to put old comb on the outside posistions in the box. The SHB's are attracted to the old comb and it makes it easier to "harvest" them. It is a quick and inexpensive way to knock down the SHB population in a hive. I thought up the soap trap last year after getting frustrated with the beetle traps that are advailable. I've stopped using beetle traps in my hives and just use my SHB soapy death trap. There is a real perverse enjoyment looking at all the drowned beetles at the end of the day.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

I'll keep this in mind. The most I ever found alive in my hives is about 4 but 25-30 dropped out through the winter. So you feel the eggs and larvae will be in the dark comb? I don't have much of that. I read somewhere that they would be in the honey even if it was capped.


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

Ace, the small hive beetles lay thier eggs in the brood comb and older honey comb where the larva hatch. The adult beetles move around the hive and get herded to the outside frames by the house bees. A small infestation of larva can be cleaned up by a strong hive. If the hive gets a major infestation then the larva burrow through the honey comb destroying everything as they go. Once that happens the hive is pretty much a loss and looks like it has been slimed.


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## papamoose (Apr 7, 2010)

Beeboy,

Where do you place the frame and tray? Under the screened bottom board? Sounds like a great way to manage cheaply.

Thanks,


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Daddy's Bees - How much experience do you have with what you are recommending? No offense - there is no reason to think that you aren't telling it straight - but, as I'm sure you know there are plenty of people on the internet who make unsubstantiated claims.


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## Daddy'sBees (Jul 1, 2010)

Howdy David. I used this process last year on 100% of my hives after my discovery of the product the year before. Now, I run mostly feral bees. It started 2 years ago when I transferred combs from cut-outs. I ended up having SHB in the transferred combs. The SHB became a problem in these hives as one can imagine. The SHB traps really didn't do much so I began looking for a very light chemical way to treat the hive. Else, the hives would eventually die. I didn't like the direct exposure of the product(They suggest that you hang one strip between the frames.), so I put 1/3 of a strip into the DVD/CD case as I explained. Through experimentation I found this idea to work well on SHB as well as the mites. Now I must say that these small feral bees around here don't get very many mites as do more domestic varieties I have tried. These small feral bees obviously make smaller diameter cells than their counterparts. This set-up just worked well for me and offered a minimal exposure to the chemicals. I'm convinced of it's success. Why not try it?


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## MrHappy (Feb 10, 2012)

Funny, I was just watching a couple YouTube videos about the cd case trap. They used a slimline case and put roach killer in it. It's the same idea as the reusable traps except the trap is free and bigger. Not saying it will work, just saying that I saw it a couple times.


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## theriverhawk (Jun 5, 2009)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Small-Hive-Beetle-Trap-IPK-Greenbeehives-beekeeping-/300667484695?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item46012dba17

If you only have a couple of hives, then this will be a good investment. Lots of hives and this would be too expensive. They work. Just switch out this with your current bottom board and you'll be SHB free pretty soon. If you don't get a handle on it now, the summer will be the downfall of the hives.


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## theriverhawk (Jun 5, 2009)

Also, Daddy's process really does work if you choose to go the chemical/pesticide route(which is not bad). I have used it a similar manner by placing it under a piece of 4"x4" corugated plastic either on the bottom board or up in a top corner of the hive. They seek out this little dark nook-n-cranny to get away from the bees, brush against the piece of Checkmite and die. Don't leave it in longer than a week, though. If you're overrun right now, you need to do something for a quick knock out. I'd do some variation of this or the bottom board. 
You can also check out this video of a guy in Ga and how he does it. I've got a few of these traps and the bait. It works, too.
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0mO-cYTZ58

Good luck!


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

Papamoose,
I set the soapy small hive beetle death trap up on the top of another hive and move it around as I inspect the beeyard. I keep planning to make a plywood base with handles on it so it is more portable but it is easy enough to carry as it is. I just finished inspecting and flipping my six hives and was able to take out about 200 SHB's as I was working them. I'll will take some pictures of the soapy hive beetle trap with the day's kill and post it as soon as I get a chance. Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words. I'm not into using chemicals in my hives even in a CD case or under the SBB. The trouble I have alway had with traps is that the SHB's need a bait to draw them in and I have never found a bait that works very well.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

here is a beetle trap bait that i have used with some success:

2 tbls over ripe banana
1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 pinches of bakers yeast

mix and let set overnite
keep sealed and refrigerated


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

Here's a link over to my Photobucket page with some pictures of the soapy beetle trap.
http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a206/Beeboy01/May Honey Extraction/
There are three pictures of the gizmo, I know it isn't pretty and could use a little paint but so far it works fine.
I check the frames as I pull them during a regular inspection and if there are any SHB's present the frame gets banged against the screening. It is quick and easy.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Hey, I love your sink idea. Guess what I am going to do next year?


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

Ace, Just make sure there is plenty of room under the sink for a 5 gallon bucket with a filter, guess how I figured that out.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

I have ss screen that I was thinking of putting in the sink to prevent overflow. That wil cut down on the height needed.


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

I was trying one of the little stainless steel lint traps that drop into the drain hole of the sink last year. It didn't work very well, just got plugged up with chunks of wax after about 15 minutes. I'm using a kitchen strainer laying across the top of the catch bucket and it is working a lot better as long as I don't dump a lot of caps into the drain. The best design would be a false bottom with holes in it that supported a piece of medium screening that lays in on the bottom of the sink. This would allow the honey in the caps to drain out into the sink and run out the drain hole. The cappings build up pretty fast, maybe moving them over to a collender sitting on a seperate bucket would work. Think I'll give that idea a try this year. With a 10 gallon extraction I will get about one gallon of honey when I drain the cappings so it is worth the effort.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

imagine a funnel shaped strainer but tip it upside down so the peak is facing up. Yes, you need a lot of area on the screen and this would be the coarse screen and the fine screen would be underneath on the pail like normal.


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

Don't know where you would get something like that but it would work great. A clean funnel cut to fit along with some screen would do the trick. Good idea !!


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## Slow Modem (Oct 6, 2011)

theriverhawk said:


> You can also check out this video of a guy in Ga and how he does it. I've got a few of these traps and the bait. It works, too.


Did you buy your traps from John Pluta on his blog website? I had been thinking about getting some.

PS: You need to edit your link, it has http:// twice.

Thanks!


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## Ron5252 (Jan 19, 2011)

So there are some great ideas out there and thank you for sharing them. I had a chance to go back into my two hives this afternoon. I placed MegaBee patties in the hives last week and have been nervous due to the number of SHB I saw. Well, SHB's do NOT need very warm temps to breed as I found some larva mixed in with the remains of the patties. Temps have been mild, mostly in the 50's all week. Luckily there was hardly none of the patties left as the bees ate most of them in the last 6 days. I put six of those reusable beetle traps (there are like $5 a piece) in each hive. They knock the snot out of the beetle population in one hive and dented the other. Each trap had about 15 to 25 dead beetles. One hive is still scary infested but moving in the right direction and the other is still high. Not too bad as I didn't even cover these traps as suggested. The only issue I have with these traps is you have to be very careful not to spill the vegetable oil into the hive. No matter how careful it seems like one of the top's pop off or something and I spill a little. I think next week I am going to put oil in the trays under my screen bottom boards. Seems kind of messy and was wondering if Diatomaceous Earth would be better for the trays. I decided to not test fate and did not put new patties on the hives. The bees are pulling pollen and the maples seem to be almost ready to bloom. 

Does anyone have a suggestion on were to buy Diatomaceous Earth? I heard some types are not effective and I really do not know anything about it.


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

I would hold off on putting diamomaceous earth under the screen bottom board. When SHB's drop into the pan they might crawl back up into the hive spreading the stuff. The best place to use diatomaceous earth is mixed in the surface dirt under the hives. That way the SHB larva get exposed to earth as they burrow into the ground on the way to pupate. It breaks the life cycle of the SHB's just like using Yard Star ground drench except it is not a chemical. 
If you are getting SHB larva in the patties either use smaller patties or stop feed them to the bees. The SHB larva will move off the patties into the hive which is no good. Sounds like youare headed in the right direction with those little pests.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

I don't use patties but can you use them as bait? Let the larvae go in, pull the patty and freeze it and then use it again.


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