Just come back from a trip and checked the hive and noticed these tiny little cockroach buggers… i’ve never seen anything like them has anyone else and should evasive action be taken… they dont look to be on the inside of the hive only between the rear access door and frames…
I see those in my mulch, butcher birds love them whenever I uncover them. I don’t believe that you need to take any evasive action. Especially seeing as they are on the outside.
thanks Jeff, yer they dont seam to bee anywhere elese in the hive. i wonder if they would have any impact of the honey production as they seam to be building away from the window end (but thats proberbly more to do with “staying away from the light” lol)
Just yesterday I saw one of those small roaches being ushered out the front door by 3 or 4 guard bees. I’m up the road from you in Wollongong. Seeing the roach man-handled out the front door looked like 2am at a dodgy niteclub.
We’re inspecting our hive today, I’ll keep a lookout and report back if we find more of these little buggers.
Seconded. I just found a monster roach co-habiting with a black widow spider in a hive roof. The inner cover had copious roach poo over it (gross ), and a spider silk ball of eggs in one corner. I am surprised that the spider tolerated so much cr@p from the roach!
At least there weren’t any SHB on top of the cover. Just 8 below it, chased into the corners as usual.
If I didn’t see one of them on the flow inner cover- or right there on the flow frame cap- I’d be surprised. I’ve seen them many times on all my hives. Whenever I take off the flow roof there is almost always one cockroach sitting on the inner cover. They like the warmth I guess- and they do no harm at all.
they could be eating the propolis (from the outside) where you can see the gap filled with it near the aluminium. They are also probably attracted to the sweet odour of the hive and the humidity etc. behind that panel.
had a peep in there today (about lunch time) and the bees are really getting stuck in which is good.
it looked like the bees did build up propolis around all the frames and sealed it all off. I guess the gaps are from the other day when i opened the hive and pulled a couple of flow frames to check it all out.
sounds like all should be sweet though. thanks everyone.
She looks like the one I found under my hive roof last weekend. Her egg sacs are more impressive than the one I found though! Also, my black widow had a 4cm adult roach in the same space with her, so she must not have been a very good hunter.