Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

ocba - [ocba] Small Hive Beetles

ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Zac Morris <zac AT zacwolf.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [ocba] Small Hive Beetles
  • Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:01:09 -0400

So I ended last season with a bit of a SHB problem.  The bees were mostly running them, and I couldn't find any larva/fermented honey.

So I opened them this Spring and the problem had gotten worse.  Still no discernible larva/fermented honey, but the numbers had gone way up.

I had purchased a new queen, to re-queen; but when I went to install her I found an open (very well formed) supercedure queen cell, but I couldn't find her.  The hive was down to 10 frames.  Blair came over and helped me find the queen, and advised me to split the hive down to two five frame nucs (to help clear the SHB).

Meanwhile I also purchased some of the 10 frame "oil tray" SHB hive bottoms from Bailey's.  Filled them with mineral oil, then after a week I moved the five frame nucs each back to a 10 frame deep.

When I did the move I noticed less than 10 SHB in each hive, so moving them down to the 5 frame helped the most, but after two weeks over the new bottoms I'm happy to report 10 frames full of honey/brood, and NO SHB!

Thanks!
-Zac

P.S. I also cleared my carpenter ant problem by cutting four-inch lengths of 1.5" PVC pipe, then put each down in a large canned chicken "tin", that I filled with mineral oil.  I then put my 12x16 cinder-block on four of those (which gave it a lot of stability), then put my hives on top of that.



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page