Look you could probably do it before you split them, like late winter in the last 2 weeks of August if its warm enough where you are, just before they begin Spring build up.
You could do it as part of your Spring brood inspection, that way you can transfer it over one frame at a time and cycle out any bad frames if necessary as well as check for Foulbrood etc.
Doing it now would be breaking all the seals the bees have built throughout the hive and i wouldn’t be subjecting the brood box to that sort of renovation at this time of year.
I wouldn’t be to concerned about SHB, since it’s got a bit colder I haven’t noticed any coming into my hives, any that are in your hive are probably being kept under control provided the hive is strong enough. The bees build prisons around the beetles and disturbing the hive allows them to escape.
Thanks Stevo, than I wait till August. I put a hive beetle trap a week ago with cooking oil. I found heaps of hive beetles. Should I leave the trap in till August too? One of my super frame bottom bar fall apart so i took it out on a warm day and repair it.
The man I bought the hive from not believing queen excluder. I read heaps of literature about the topic and made up my mind to use them. I got the hive give the 5 days to settle in and done a brood inspection with adding a queen excluder. A week later I perform an other brood inspection to see if the queen is laying strong after moving the hive and adding queen excluder.
I made a cd cover hive beetle trap with cooking oil layer inside and placed on the bottom. Unfortunately there is no screen on the bottom and it is very old construction.
I didn’t know that about the queen excluder. Should I take it out? The brood box is on a separate bottom construction and me able to just tilt the two box to make a gap to pull out the trap.
Flow hive is much better with the bottom tray.
Should I remove the trap?
I would remove the excluder as long as we have suitable weather this week and it is warm enough where you are, but it should be a fairly quick operation.
Some people attach a piece of stiff wire etc to beetle traps like yours so they can pull it out the entrance, would that be possible? I would keep checking/emptying it once a week or so, you may notice less and less beetles as it gets colder.
Maybe invest in a couple of traps that sit in between the top bars so you can check them with less disturbance. I use these:
