Hi Ian, “how to combat this?” is a good question.
I cut the affected comb out of the frames into my wax bin to do like I described earlier, while making sure that every grub goes in as well. We don’t want any grubs escaping into the soil, because that’s where they’ll complete their life cycle, about 4" under the ground.
If you don’t have a bin that you can boil everything in, a good large bucket with a good lid will do. Just put everything in the bucket, every possible grub included, before putting the lid on tight. All you need to do then is place the bucket in the hot sun for a day. That will kill everything inside the bucket.
Be aware that the grubs crawl around, looking for soil to bury into at night. They rarely come out during the daylight hours.
You can prevent this from happening again by following a few simple steps. I can share them later on if you like.
PS I’ll try this out. I copied something I said about 5 years ago.
There’s a few bits of stuff I wrote to folks on SHBs in the topic listed below.
Small Hive Beetle - SHB Aethina Tumida
Hi Shane, I saw you mention “quite a few drones”. Quite a few drones in a hive is not good if you have problems with SHB. The drones wont do any defending & could get in the way of the workers trying to stop the beetles from laying eggs. If you have any shb damage, you should get into your brood & cut any drone comb out, as well as any worker comb with shb damage. Carefully replace the frames so you don’t kill any bees.
SHB is one of the reasons why I prefer wax foundation as opposed to starter strips or foundationless frames, to keep the drone comb in the hive to a lower %.
Hi Lucas, the fact that worker bees are chasing the beetle till they find somewhere to hide is good. That is my shb strategy, to have lots of workers in the hive so that the workers will chase the beetles till they find somewhere to hide. I don’t use any traps & I believe that shb are as bad here as anywhere else. I do squash them every chance I get, but I don’t lose any sleep over them.
Yes I have the same experience. It took me a while to figure it all out. I don’t use any traps whatsoever. The tricks I find is to keep the worker population strong. Eliminate large areas of drone comb out of the brood. Keep the hives floor clean. Try not to squash bees when returning frames into the hive. Lastly make sure there’s nowhere outside of the hive the beetles can breed up in, such as unused/discarded frames containing brood or pollen, also uncovered slumgum.
-Edit- PS. Another important thing to remember is: Make sure there is a generous covering of worker bees to protect any frames containing brood or pollen inside the hive. The beetles wont lay eggs on empty frames, fresh foundation or empty drawn comb.