I am a newbie to beekeeping and received a second hand Flow Hybrid hive and a small colony from a friend, who has also given me a lot of advice. I set the hive up in a partly shaded area of our property in November (Australia). We were unsure if there was a queen in this colony but there was a good amount of brood. Unfortunately the hive became infested with SHB, slowly deteriorated and eventually absconded.
I cleaned everything up after freezing first, then received another colony. This one definitely had a queen and a small amount of brood. On follow up inspections the brood became very patchy and the queen was being ignored by the colony. This colony has succombed to SHB as well, despite using a wire bottom with sticky corflute slider and an oil trap.
I don’t want to give up on my beekeeping journey but I also don’t want to keep losing colonies. Should I wait until Spring to get a new nuc with proven queen, etc? Move the hive to a more open setting? (it is currently in a forested area)
Next spring is a long way away. You could start again now with a strong nuc, coupled with the knowledge on how to avoid the same thing from happening again, which we can definitely help with.
Happy to try again, so any advice re prevention appreciated
Have a screened bottom board with a furry tablecloth stuck on. Also an oil trap within the hive. Currently have a full width hive entry
Have attached a photo of the location. We have a more open paddock situation but this is far less convenient, as everything needs to be walked there for maintenance. Not even accessible with a wheelbarrow
You’re welcome Beck, I think your hive position is ok, except that you don’t want any sideways slope. You need the hive to be level sideways, however forward slope is fine. Side slop results in the bees not building comb central to the frames.
Barring disease or poison my main hive beetle strategies are as follows:
#1 Keep the worker population up, with drone population down. Drones do no defending, only workers will chase & prevent beetles from laying eggs in unprotected brood, dead bees & pollen.
#2 Keep your brood frames with around 95% worker comb. Minimize drone comb.
#3 Minimize bee deaths & trapping bees between combs while doing inspections.
#4 Minimize honey spills onto the brood area. While bees are cleaning up the mess, that can allow beetles an opportunity to lay eggs.
#5 Make sure that frames containing brood or pollen have a good covering of worker bees on them. For example: Don’t add a frame of brood to a weak colony unless the colony has enough workers to defend it.
#6 Be aware of anything we leave outside a hive that beetles can possibly breed in.
I frequently have small colonies in large boxes while keeping #5 in mind.
The thing to know about SHB is that when a colony succumbs to a slime out, SHB is not the cause, just the symptom.
SHB are opportunists waiting for the chance to procreate. They have good Defence’s as individuals against bees with their hard, sting proof exoskeleton. I have seen on occasion a bee bite off legs and antennas, but the main strategy for bees is to corral and propolise the beetles to stop them laying eggs. It is labour intensive! For a colony to keep SHB in check, it must be strong, healthy and well populated for the space they have to protect.
A number of causes can prevent adequate protection:
Too much space - a super added before adequate bee population or a small nuc or swarm added to a full sized box too soon.
Disease - the colony is weakened by disease. The worst and very common disease is American Foul Brood (AFB). I’ve done postmortems on a number of slime-outs to find AFB spores. If that equipment had been just cleaned and reused, then another AFB outbreak would most likely happen.
Pests - the most notable pest facing us Aussies is now is Varroa destructor. Even after three years of eradication/transition to management, workshops, videos and magazine articles, I still meet beekeepers who have no idea about varroa. They thought their hives were poisoned. Varroa rapidly weakens their host to the point that SHB can overwhelm them. Varroa was the cause, SHB slime out was the symptom.
Starvation - During a dearth, the bees depend on their stores to get them through. An over enthusiastic beekeeper might have taken too much honey before the dearth or the dearth just lasted too long. Either way, the colony weakens, population drops leading to too much space to guard with fewer bees, potentially leading to … slime out.
Poisoning - pesticides and herbicides are commonly used and both can take a heavy toll on our bees. Pesticides are designed to kill unwanted insects, but the collateral mortality is huge. Some act so rapidly that forager bees don’t make it home. Others are slower acting so the foragers can carry it home and spread it throughout the hive. Herbicides aren’t designed to kill insects, but research shows that the bee’s gut flora is affected by either the herbicide or the surfactants in the solution. This leads to malnutrition and colony decline, opening the way for SHB.
Second hand equipment might be contaminated with AFB spores. Steritech can eradiate your gear, but Flow frames become brittle.
When you start again, keep all these things in mind. Join a club, find a mentor. Things are easier with local help. There’s plenty of time to start again this season up your way. Just focus on building up a strong colony for next spring.
