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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Robert Crook <crookkohler AT bellsouth.net>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Hive Beetle
  • Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2017 08:58:04 -0500

Rob,

SHB have migrated across the US much slower than Varroa mites did. They are endemic in the southern states but still are rare or unknown in many of the northern tier states, although they are definitely on the move toward those areas. They can overwinter within the bee cluster so cold winters aren't a major issue for them. They first arrived in South Carolina in the late 90's and reached my bee yard (northern Orange) in 2007 or so. It was still another year or two before my friends in Person County ever saw them.

SHB are a major problem for folks who must keep small colonies, for example mating colonies for queen producers. There seems to be a lot of variability regarding how much harm they do in different situations and how easily they can be kept in check by the methods described in the article but I think that must mostly be dependent on colony strength, colony density and SHB density in the area. That's speculation on my part.

The SHB article is a couple of years old so didn't mention Swiffer pads -- the flat fibrous cloth kind (unscented). Lots of folks report good results using them on the inner cover. The beetles' legs get entangled in the fibers and the bugs subsequently die there. They don't catch many/any beetles for me but I don't have major beetle infestations. A downside is that they can also trap bees' legs (or is it bees' knees?), but usually only a few bees will be entrapped.

Varroa mites are pretty much everywhere that honey bees are, except for Australia and equatorial Africa. They are deadly to colonies wherever they are found. Tom Seeley, doing research in an isolated forest in NY, once suggested that the isolated bees and isolated mites developed into populations of less virulent mites, but his more recent research seems to discount that hypothesis. So with respect to Varroa mites, no, there doesn't appear to be an environmental factor involved in their destructive abilities. That makes sense because unlike SHB, the "environment" for a Varroa mite is always/only/exclusively the back of a honey bee or a brood cell, and those are the same everywhere.

Completely unrelated point: Rob, you need to migrate your OCBA List address to the new one: theocba AT googlegroups.com.

Randall


On 11/7/2017 11:59 PM, Robert Crook wrote:
FFDF9FF9-FC75-4FBB-8A1F-70D69DBE2BD0 AT bellsouth.net">
The other beetles all scurried off.
Thanks to all for input, it's always good to hear. 

Is there anyplace in the country where beetles are a problem? Is there a place where varroa is NOT a problem but still present in hives? In short is there a site by pest interaction?

Rob

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 7, 2017, at 4:10 PM, Randall Austin <s.randall.austin AT gmail.com> wrote:

Rob,

Seeing hive beetles just means that you are in Piedmont NC. Take a look at the article <here> for some advice (May 2015). If you only have a few, and no SHB larvae, then it is very easy to do more harm than good trying to do something about them.

My question to you is, how did you only get one beetle in the picture?

Randall Austin


On 11/7/2017 3:43 PM, Rob Cook wrote:
1479811463.3972923.1510087427726 AT mail.yahoo.com">
I took advantage of the last of the warm weather yesterday and did an inspection of the hive. I have been feeding the bees and there is a supply of honey that they have stored up in comb and there is some larvae in open cells but not a whole lot of brood. I figure for this time of year the queen is not really looking to create a whole lot of new mouths to feed. I could not find the queen but I know that she is in there. I took out the IPM board from underneath also to provide more ventilation as the weather gets wetter and cooler. This hive swarmed twice during the year, (that I know of) and seems to be a little on the small side. I also noticed that there are a number of hive beetles running around.

Any suggestions for controlling beetles. Thanks everyone.

Rob Crook
Cboro


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