Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

ocba - Re: [ocba] Hive beetles being selective?

ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Caleb Haynes <calebthaynes AT gmail.com>, Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Hive beetles being selective?
  • Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 18:00:04 -0400

Caleb,

Small hive beetles (SHB) are attuned to bee colonies' pheromone signals. One possibility (not saying it necessarily relates to your specific case, just what could happen) is that, for example, one colony isn't queenright... the beetles can pick up on that via its pheromone profile and preferentially select that hive to infest. SHB are very good at their jobs! There is no reason to expect every hive in an apiary to be equally infested.

Some basic info on SHB and a few tips for keeping them from being an issue are <here>.

Randall


On 9/10/2016 10:43 AM, Caleb Haynes wrote:

Question for y'all,
I have two hives about 3 feet from each other. The strongest and most aggressive of the two is swamped with small hive beetles seeming to  number in the thousands under the top cover alone. I've been using traps to slow them down but the hive has been pretty much overrun. However in the other hive I could only find 2 beetles total. What on earth could be the difference between these two hives? Is this unusual or do y'all see a similar massive beetle population difference between hives that are so close together in your bee yard?



_________________________________________
ocba mailing list | North Carolina Beekeeping| http://www.theocba.org/
Manage Your Subscription: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ocba/





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page