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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: "birdcr AT concentric.net" <birdcr AT concentric.net>
  • To: Blair Christian <blair.christian AT gmail.com>, ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] High SHB levels...
  • Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 19:29:14 -0500 (CDT)

Blair,
Small Hive Beetles need soft ground for their larva to pupate in.
This wet summer has kept the ground from being a crusty rock hard
surface like summers past. Beetle thrive with lots of humidity.
Been the most humid summer I can ever recall.

I'm thinking if you saw about 100 beetles at the top of the hive,
their would likely bee 500-700 beetles in the whole hive perhaps
more. Just so you know about 2/3rds of the beetles you see are
females. Females can lay up to 200 eggs a day. You don't need Bill
Clinton to do the arithmetic, in a few days left to their own
devices the beetles can quickly take over a hive.

I'm sure in the past month I have killed 1000+ beetles between the
4 hives I have in this yard. I think I have cut the numbers way
back unless more beetles move in, crossing my fingers and hoping
it calms down.

Beetles can fly up to 5 miles a day, there are 10 hives owned by 2
different people 100+ yards from here. One hive left to die and
not taken care of, I'm sure could produce huge numbers of beetles.
A bunch of hives done in by beetles and un attended could make the
beetles epidemic IMO. I think we all need to watch our hives
closely.

Cheers,
Randy Emmitt
www.rlephoto.blogspot.com





On Mon Sep 10 18:16:27 CDT 2012, Blair Christian
<blair.christian AT gmail.com> wrote:

> I manage a few hives in southern Durham, and I went over there
> for the
> first inspection in a while, and one of them had at least 100
> SHB-
> they were almost pooling under the top cover edges. I've never
> seen
> anything like it...
>
> I had a hive abscond from that location last month. I'm
> wondering now
> if it was in part due to the high beetle levels...
>
> Just thought I'd pass that on since several other folks had
> severe
> beetle problems too. It must be really localized. I wonder why
> their
> populations are really higher in some places? Any ideas what the
> reproductive cycle looks like? There must be some really
> conducive
> places around. I put out some nematodes around my hives at my
> house
> http://southeasterninsectaries.com/
> and the hive beetles haven't been bad at all here. Not sure if
> they're related or not (nematodes and low SHB levels)...
>
> Best,
> Blair
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