I noticed one of my nucs didn’t make a new queen. Sadly the bees were gone & hive beetles bred up in the 2 brood frames. Thousands of beetle larvae were on the bottom board, waiting for night time, so they can get to soil, in order to complete their life cycle.
After a little while, we found that the birds had abandoned their feast. They must have eaten all the big ones. The tiny ones that are crawling on the cement driveway are getting harassed by ants. Therefore I doubt if any will get a chance to turn into beetles. If so, they’ll only be tiny, which are unable to reproduce, according to a scientist from Texas.
Those brown chunks are slumgum, which I currently use to catch cockroaches every night. All we do is, the next day Wilma gives a whistle, almost instantly the birds appear for a nice feed.
Oh no @JeffH, at least the Maggie’s were happy and you caught the grubs before they reached the ground.
I’m a first year beak so can’t compare the years, but it’s been a struggle to stop hives from swarming and just when I thought I’d cracked it, my original hive swarmed again. I’m thinking the shb must have not helped, it’s been an ongoing battle.
Thank you for sharing warts & all I’ve learnt so much from keepers like you Jeff
Hi & thank you Sara. I don’t know how many made it to ground before today. I guess I’ll notice an increase of beetles in the 8 remaining hives (one full hive, & 7 nucs) at that site, which is not my main site, otherwise I would have checked the hive much earlier, & rescued the colony. I need a good kick in the backside for leaving these colonies for 6 or 7 weeks without inspections.
Hi Rob, we NEVER get bombed. They’d be silly to bomb us after all the live food we provide them with. There’s always one or two close to me when I’m working in the garden. They think I work in the garden purely for their benefit - I’m sure of that Two things they really love me to dig up is curl grubs, & most of all, centipedes. They get REAL excited over a centipede.
Just an update on the beetle larvae: they came back & finished them off. That was after I placed some cardboard down for the larvae to crawl under, which prevented them from exiting the lid in search of soil.
PS, I must have been too tired last night not to figure out that you meant to type “soil”, not “soul”. I couldn’t work out what you meant.
I’ve learnt so much from keepers like you Jeff 
Two things they really love me to dig up is curl grubs, & most of all, centipedes. They get REAL excited over a centipede.