Small hive beetles

Hello all,

Are these pesky Devils just a fact off life? I have beetle traps in place but still see a few whenever I open my hive for inspection. I did put cayenne pepper powder on the core flute slider and have not seen one on there for four days now. Do all of you pros also have some of these things in your hives???

Iā€™m setting up my flow hive and picking up my bees next week. In my vast trolling of the internet, I came across this little gem ā€“ hopefully it will help you out!

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Thatā€™s great, I just want to buy it already made, donā€™t care really what the cost is.

SHBs are a fact of life in areas where they exist. I donā€™t use any traps at all. I just keep my colonies strong, keep the drone comb down to a minimum & donā€™t have any frames in the hive that contain brood or pollen unless they have a generous covering of worker bees on them.

Donā€™t leave anything sitting around outside the hive that SHB can lay eggs in. Things like frames containing brood or pollen. They also breed up in slumgum (residue after processing wax).

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Jeffā€™s advice is solid :+1:

I will take a look at that video, thanks Michael.

Iā€™d add to what Jeff says about keeping the hive and surroundings tidy, and emphasize that itā€™s worth the effort to try not to squash bees while you inspect, and to remove the ones you did squash whenever possible. Beetles love to breed in bee carcasses. Bees will remove what they can, but cannot get to the ones we inevitably squash between hive parts :hushed:

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Thanks jeff, michael and eva. We all need the guy in this video to develope his product. In fact it should probably be the industry standard.

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Iā€™m happy to make a bunch of these which will fit the angled bottom board for the flowhiveā€¦

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Every now and then I find this small jelly like white blob laying on the landing board. Is that beetle larvae that the bees have removed or what??? I cannot see any beetle larvae on any of the frames.

Also, will these beetles go up into the flow super when I add that on???

A photo would really help, as one personā€™s ā€œsmallā€ is another personā€™s ā€œbigā€. :smile: Most likely would be a bee larva or part of a larva, that the nurse bees decided was infected, infested or otherwise unfit. By the way, larva is the singular, larvae refers to more than one! :blush:

So you found a larva, or some larvae. :wink:

Latin is a language,
As dead as dead can be.
It killed the poor old Romans,
Now itā€™s killing me!
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I found 1 possible larva this time. It is about as big as the eraser on a new pencil.

Dawn, also thanks for the English lesson. Iā€™m always in need of that. Lol.

Definitely a bee larva, then. Normal bee housekeeping. Donā€™t worry about it. :wink:

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Thank you Dawn. I really appreciate you and value your knowledge.

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You neednā€™t boast, @Dawn_SD, we already love you. :wink:

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I love thisšŸ˜

Something crazy like 80% or more of communication is nonverbal, yet I know that all the information I could ever need on beekeeping is here!

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