Hello again. Will hive beetles go up into the honey super??
Yes. They go everywhere in the hive. They prefer to lay eggs in the brood areas, but they will run any place that the bees chase them.
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Hi Chris, I find lots of beetles in the honey supers. The bees will chase them until they find somewhere to hide, then they will propolize them in. As long as you keep the worker population strong & the make sure you don’t have any large areas of drone comb in the brood, you’ll be free of trouble. I don’t use any traps whatsoever.
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Well, just added the honey super and here is a nosey hive beetle with a bee chasing it.
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Today, I confirmed that Dawn_SD is in fact, correct:
While uncapping a frame for extraction, a hive beetle worm crawled out. I fed him to the chickens 
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Hi Ed, are you sure it’s a hive beetle larvae & not a wax moth larvae. Normally if there is beetle larvae anywhere in the comb, it will be accompanied with slimy honey covering the capped honey. The beetles have a knack of walking in honey & spreading it everywhere & turning it rancid.
You will sometimes find wax moth larvae living inside frames of honey. Sometimes you’ll see the track they leave while holding a frame up to the light. It’s never anything to worry about, at least I don’t worry about it.
PS. Hi @Dawn_SD I saw an interesting talk on SHB at a Texas beekeeping conference. Apparently the optimum brood temperature is a little bit hotter than what beetles tolerate. They will hang around the fringes of the brood where it’s a couple of degrees cooler. Having said that, as you can imagine, a fully operating hive where the brood temp is correct will have enough workers to chase the beetles away anyway.
Now, as you can imagine, once the worker population decreases, there wont be enough bees to maintain the optimum brood temp. Therefore the brood temp will fall to the comfortable temp for the beetles, thus allowing them to enter the brood area. The lack of worker population that was unable to maintain the brood temperature will be flat out stopping them from laying eggs in the brood.
It’s an interesting talk. Another thing that was discussed was the size of the beetles. Apparently beetles under a certain size are unable to reproduce. It’s interesting that the small ones come about because the food runs out, not allowing them to reach full size grubs. However they are still able to turn into beetles. So I guess where beetles are concerned, size DOES matter:)
WOW, it only occurred to me while proof reading this. All this time (since joining the forum) I’ve been talking about drone comb. It just occurred to me that the recently hatched drones that cover a large area of drone comb would not only do nothing to defend against the beetles, they would also do nothing to maintain the hive temp in that area.
PS @Dawn_SD, I found the video. A lot of it went over my head on account of the accent, but I got the general idea. It’s really worth watching I think.
cheers
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Thanks Jeff,
I’m really not sure and I didn’t fret over it. There was only one, but by seeing that one it put me on high alert to inspect each frame carefully as I uncapped.
Well done Ed, you’re welcome. It sounds like a wax moth grub to me.
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What do you think Jeff? I just harvested another 120 lbs and found one more. I fed him to the bearded dragon lol
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They are great photos Ed. It looks like wax moth larvae. If you hold the frame up into the light, before extracting the honey, you’ll be able to see the track they leave in the honey. The SHB larvae is more white & you can’t see their intestines through the skin, like you can with the wax moth larvae. They look more like a long grain of rice.
I’m sure that you wont find any shb larvae without the accompanying damage to the comb as well as the slimy honey covering a lot of the comb.
The SHB wont lay their eggs on the outside of the comb. They will chew through the comb & lay their eggs at the base of the brood. Then the larvae eat the brood from the inside first. That’s why you’ll see multiple larvae in each cell with an infestation.
In that video I posted, the scientist doing the talk spoke a great deal about nurse bees & cleaning. That’s why the beetles lay their eggs at the base of the brood.
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Yes…that is a wax moth larvae…not a beetle larvae.
Gary
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Glad I was checking under the cappings 
I so dont like either. They killed my young hive.
I’ve come across this Youtube about a way discovered to keep hive beetles from your hives. I’ve watched all of Jeff Willard’s videos on this and I’m going to use his method in all my hives:
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Hi beekeepers, my first post so hope I don’t stuff it up.
Have only had bees since December 2019 here in Victoria, Aust.
Along with a lot of reading and viewing, I locked down my hive for winter using a bit of everyone’s advice. It can get cold here… -2C to 10C worst case, generally…5C to 13C.
Flow hive 2, one brood box, QE, one super 85%full. Strong colony.
In early June, just into our winter, I extracted one frame of honey. No problems. 6 jars.
The bees filled that frame within a week but did not add to the super overall. I left it for winter.
Today, mid winter, with the weather warm, I decided to extract another frame as the super appeared 85%.
I only managed just under 2 jars of honey which I suspect was because the bees had been feeding on honey central to the frame and not evident from the rear window. All part of learning I guess!
A long story to get to the problem.
I discovered in the extracted honey, several larvae, varying from a couple of mm’s up to 7mm.
A quick search convinced me that they were Small Hive Beetle larvae but that didn’t sit right with me after all the info I have digested on this pest. I didn’t think it was wax moth based on images I had seen. Pics included.
(I have a video but haven’t worked out how to dumb it down to include here).
Would love any feedback to confirm/deny and suggestions from your experience.
Yeah looks like wax moth larvae to me, SHB larva have rows of ‘spines’ along their back which I’m not seeing in your pics. SHB larvae are quite tough too whereas wax moth tend to squish easier.
Have you pulled one out and given it a rinse? Could confirm for sure then.
@Stevo Thanks Stevo for your quick reply. I still think it is a SHB larva based on JeffH comments above. Yellowish as opposed to white and 3 pairs of legs near the head. (it’s obvious in my video if I could just get it to download). The following link I found shows exactly what I have.
I’m confused about finding it in the super, in the honey, when I thought they feed on the bee larvae. Queen can’t get into the super.
Unfortunately, I strained the honey to clear the junk and won’t be able to do the ‘squish’ test.
I can’t open the hive and check on it’s health for a couple of months yet as the weather is too cold. The colony appears to be strong and active on warm days bringing in lots of pollen.
https://images.app.goo.gl/cZymj7g7NrQe5WdPA
I’m betting its Lesser Wax Moth, BTW all insects have six legs so that’s not a distinguishing feature. I’m not seeing any spines in your photo and that grub looks rounded in the segments not angular like SHB.
Also the colour of wax moth varies from creamy white to grey.
Either way one or two isn’t much of an issue.
@Stevo That’s a great observation thanks Stevo. The link added great weight to you argument. I’ll have to be on my toes come the warmer weather. With possible swarming and now wax moth, as a newbee I’m somewhat anxious. 
