Hello out there to you all.
I thought it may bee a good Idea (not sure how good) to let the forum know about my experience to date with purchasing my FIRST hive of bees.
I picked up a 7 frame accelerated hive in late January 2023. I was beside myself. (I have planned this for ten years).
I brought the girls home on a calm Monday morning, then placed the frames into their new flow home the next day.
As I was doing the transferring, I noticed on the 4th frame, a little black beetle. I did not stop to investigate as I was a little nervous at the time.
After completing the move, I sat down and fired off an email to the supplier, and two more emails over the following weeks, just asking if they could let me know what this little critter was. I received no reply.
All good, I researched as one would do. First stop, Mrs Google. It was a hive beetle . Ahhhhhrgh. I have ordered some beetle traps to hopefully rid my hive of this pest. Now my point being is that perhaps, Flow, and Bee sellers could perhaps suggest to us, pop a beetle trap or 2 into your new hive from the get go. Apart from that one issue, thank fully my girls are buzzing well and looking good for the winter shut down ahead.
Thank you for reading.
Happy buzzing.
James.
@James7 Hi there James, Small Hive Beetle can be a real menace, seems to thrive in hot humid areas and is a constant threat. Not sure which hive you have, but the Flow 2 has a built in pest tray into which you can add a bit of oil, for example, so that any pests, like SHB, will drop through the screened bottom board and into the tray containing the oil. Regular cleaning & replacing of the oil can help to control it.
With the Flow Classic there isn’t a tray as such, but if you check the Flow live streams/website, he explains how to make a SHB trap using a cheap tablecloth & double sided sticky tape. The cloth has a fibrous backing that the SHB legs gets tangled in and they perish.
Flow do give lots of advice on coping with a range of pests & diseases and also have an online training course where all manner of pests are covered, I highly recommend it.
Hope you get on top of the little gremlins 
Thank you for that learning. I shall get onto that in the morning.
Thank you kindly again.
James.
No problem @James7, my first port of call with a question is a search of this forum, nine out of ten times there will already be a post covering the issue and the breadth of knowledge from members is fantastic 
