# small hive beetles in my new hives. Advice, please?????



## Terri (May 10, 2002)

This spring I started up into bees again, after not having them for some years. And, I had problems with my queens, and as a result my hives are not as strong as they should be. Still, both hives have brood and I have been feeding them and hoping they would pick up soon, as the clover is blooming well.

3 times in about 3 months I have seen a beetle walk across the lid after I opened it, but Kansas grows more kinds of beetles than anybody can keep track of. Only one county ever had reported hive beetles, though.

Well I killed the first 2 beetles but I lost their carcasses. I managed to keep this one, though, and stuck it to a piece of tape. There are wonderful pics on google, and this looks like a small hive beetle from the antennae down to the shape of the back.

I know absolutely nothing about small hive beetles, as I have never heard about anybody having them. These bees came from California, though the chart I saw did not list California as having them either. And I have never seen a beetle inside the hive, just crawling on the top.

Any and all advice would be welcome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

As long as the are not bad just put some small squares of cardboard on the top bars and remove them to a bucket of water every few days.

If they are bad do like good old Dave did.

My name is Dave (hello dave!) and it really hurts me to admit this, but I recently used check mite plus. 

In January almost every hive in my yard had a *serious* infestation of small hive beetles, and I was afraid that if I didn't do something soon it would be too late once pollen really started coming in. Plus, I was afraid that if I fed (pollen sub especially) that would aggravate the problem - I felt like my hands were tied.

So I bit the hard chemical bullet and ordered some Check mite plus. I had heard that it would knock out most SHB in as little as 2-3 days, so I reduced most hives down to one box and put in one strip for one week - the directions say 40 days or so. I marked all of the frames so that I would never extract honey from them. A week or so later (after they aired out) I checker boarded to give them room and stores.

When I did a full inspection yesterday I saw one beetle in the entire yard - and general hive health looks pretty good. 

These are just the facts, I'm not in any way advocating the use of hard chemicals (this was my first time) but in this case I judged that it was do or die - and it worked. So far. This time. 

 Al


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

I am now studying up on hive beetles. I wonder if it would help to change the wooden parts of the hive often? I could rotate it through my freezer to kill eggs.


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

I've had them in all my hives, usually not a problem, the bees themselves seem to keep them in check...MOST of the time. I had a swarm I hived this spring begin to fail, and when I opened it up for inspection, I found the SHB population had begun to take over and eat through their honey and pollen stores... the SHB larvae numbered in the hundreds. So this was a relatively weak hive to begin with, so that compounded the issue. 
A few things you can do to keep the SHB population within 'manageable' levels are... Open the hives only when necessary, this seems to help keeping the SHB confined to the crevices of the hive, and not putting empty supers on too soon. You don't want all that extra space for the bees to have to patrol.
Now I am no expert, just sharing my observations and admittedly limited experiences.


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## magnoliakathy (Oct 21, 2012)

We are in South Texas and have had some success with SHB traps with plain vegetable oil in them, our hive is checked once a week, and the traps are removed, emptied, refilled with fresh veggie oil and replaced. This past Friday we put some of those SHB trap sheets in, so I will report back next week with the results.:thumb: Also, we put food-grade DE around the hive about 5 feet out on all sides to help control whatever insect on the ground might be checking out the hive.


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## ed/La (Feb 26, 2009)

I see this an old thread but I had nothing to do right now so here is my 2 cents.
Some beetles in a strong hive is not bad here in the south. Kill them and monitor that hive every week or two. Strong hives with no beetles when other hives have them are possible breeder stock. Nice to breed clean bees.The shb larvae burrow in the ground. Larvae that are ready to pupate leave the hive and burrow into soil near the hive. Some people salt the ground under hive. Some put black rolled roofing under hives, The larvae fall on roofing and burn up in hot sun or can not burrow into ground. Also keeps weed growth under hives in control. Keep a tool to manually kill beetles while working a hive. I use wood chop stick to poke them when they are hiding in comb. If you have a frame that is loaded with shb shake off bees and hit the top side of frame on something hard dislodging several beetles at a time then step on them. If larvae is visible remove frames and replace with different frames. I have put bad frames in with chickens or Washing larvae out with garden hose. drowning larvae in kiddie pool. You could cut infested comb off frame leaving 1 or 2 inch at top for starter strip. What ever you do you have to kill the larvae maggot. Bag and freeze is option if not to bad. Bee spacing is important, If to small for bee it become hive beetle space. The bees will abscond if shb is bad enough. The most effective control against small hive beetle is maintaining colony strength. Coupled with minimizing empty frames of comb, this will all but eliminate the chances of colony failure. Do not give bees more frames of comb than they can protect. Use the correct size screening on bottom boards. Bees fit through # 4 hardware cloth. No good they will get robbed. #5 is what we use. That is 5 square holes per inch. Window screen is to small for debris to fall threw.


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## ed/La (Feb 26, 2009)

I found this on YouTube Small Hive Beetle Excluder/Controller that is easy to make.... https://youtu.be/FfnefkJSfBs I do not know how good it work but worth a try.


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## ed/La (Feb 26, 2009)

[ Use the correct size screening on bottom boards. Bees fit through # 4 hardware cloth. No good they will get robbed. #5 is what we use. That is 5 square holes per inch. Window screen is to small for debris to fall threw.[/QUOTE]

My brain is failing me the correct size hardware cloth is #8 8 holes per inch.


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