I’m currently seeing more hive beetles than I’ve ever seen in the past 20 yrs. since they first arrived in Australia. While I have no photos of the beetles themselves, this is what you find on new frames. The places where bees had them corralled into. The bees corral them into hiding places before propolizing them in. These photos show the stains the beetles leave on the frames.
I’m seeing a fair bit of this at the moment, especially now that I have a lot of new frames in my hives.
cheers
I was thinking with a bit of a drop in temperature there might be a drop in SHB but not seeing it Jeff. Finding a marked increase in my apiary perimeter traps.
Cheers
There must be a hive near my hives that got slymed out. They must come from a certain direction because the hives on one end have more than the other end.
Wow, I have never been aware of this staining so I will look carefully for it going forward. Thank you for sharing that.
Your thinking makes sense to me Jeff, They could be coming from a wild hive but as likely from a hive where someone is not taking good hive management seriously.
Cheers
Are there any Australian native bees in SE Queensland JeffH? I wonder whether they are a problem to native bees too.
Yes we have a few varieties of native bees in Qld.
It can be an issue if harvesting honey and not cleaning up or not sealing off gaps etc after splits.
I rarely see any in our native bee hives and they are scattered all around our flow hives.
Like flow hives if they are strong and healthy problems are less likely.
Hi @Ruttneri, basically what @Gaz said. Once the native bees get established, nothing can get in, especially hive beetles. If hive beetles do get in, I’m sure that the native bees would wear them out. Because as soon as they stop running, the native bees deposit sticky resin onto them, which slows them down before they completely resin them down.
A native hive would be vulnerable to predators if for example a tree fell over or it split in half or something like that. Natural predators being Phorid & Syrphid Flies, now hive beetles. Syrphid flies (they look like wasps, I used to think that’s what they were) are always hanging around my back verandah where my native bees are. They must be breeding up somewhere.
cheers
Interesting your (@JeffH) observations on SHB’s.
We have only had the odd one up to about 3 weeks ago, then their population exploded.
Numbers have reduced a little bit but still more than normal. Hopefully the cooler tempretures expected this weekend will slow their progress. It proves again that you be too complacent.
Alan
Hi Alan, I’m hearing about this cool change on the weekend 
If it’s cold enough, I’ll light the fire.
I know beetles are not as active in cold weather, however it doesn’t stop them from slyming out a hive that has died out. Between them & wax moth, they generate a fair bit of heat within the hive they are devouring.
Slumgum gets fairly warm when hive beetle larvae are active in it. It’s lucky they give off a distinctive bad smell, otherwise they’d breed thousands in slumgum without me noticing. The smell occurs right from the start, giving me a chance to do something before they get out of hand… Which happened the other day.
cheers
