# well answered my own question..thinking about giving up



## farmgirl6 (May 20, 2011)

Well, found out the hard way I guess, used the CD cassettes on the hives with roach gel on the inside this weekend, worked well with one my beekeeper friend gave me, he has never and problem, everything looked fine, came home this evening to bee kill in two of the three hives...sigh..I have the worse luck I guess, don't know how it happened, the bees didn't get into the traps, didn't even seem like the beetles had even gotten into the traps..they were fine at lunch, by dinner bees walking out of my hives and falling down and dying, obviously something attacking nervous system...I swear, I give up, have lost so many hives to beetles, strong hives, I nearly gave up, thought I had a good solution, so much for that. Have tried the oil traps, ect....so depressed...took off the traps, which I swear looked perfectly fine...will they all die? had a full super of honey, now guessing can't even extract that...I swear I want to just give up, four years of this...my friend set up a hive on my place, put a trap on hers, it is just fine..seriously, am I just cursed??? so frigging depressed...couldn't leave well enough alone, hive was doing okay but have had that happen before and we are having a terrible time with hive beetles this year...


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## goodatit (May 1, 2013)

i read your first post about trying cd traps for beetles. so i looked it up and got informed. i came across another method. the freeman beetle trap. this looks like the way to go.

http://freemanbeetletrap.com/menu_page/about_the_trap

sorry about your bees.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

If your hives are in shade move them to full sun. I also put linoleum or something similar under my hives to block grass. I feel that it helps to interrupt the life cycle of the small hive beetle as well. They have to spend some time in the earth under the hive to pupate. Of course a good strong hive is crucial as well.


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## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

I've had very little trouble with hive beetles. When I got my first hive, it had a few. Full sun and metal underused hives so they can't pupate and oil traps and that did it. I was just thinking the other day how I had not seen one hive beetle in like two years. The horse nettle/giant nettle got really tall and was really shading the hives. When I opened the hives I noticed a bee acting weird. I thought maybe its leg was stuck under the frame I was lifting. I lifted it and he ran under and grabbed a beetle haha. So there was one. Hives were shaded...

The other thing- I read that bees can't kill te beetles but they put them in "jail", holding then in corners so they are unable to breed and do their thing. When we open te hives, the chaos breaks them out of jail so I also leave my bees alone as much as possible.


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## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

Sorry stupid iphone


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## CJ (May 10, 2002)

I don't know if it helps or not, but we have our hives inside the chicken area, and the chickens absolutely delight in pecking and scratching all around the hives. We think this helps too.


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