Small Hive Beetle Back in Force

A few weeks back, I removed my small hive beetle traps. The bees had propolized the holes and they needed to be opened back up and probably enlarged to 3/8 inches. I have only seen a few SHBs this year until today.

Today there were small hive beetles in every hive. I crushed 12 - 24 on each inner cover. I replaced the shim round I had made for each hive under the inner covers and will replace the SHB traps this weekend.

In the upper picture you can see a SHB in the foreground and a bee attacking a SHB in the upper left corner. The picture below is a close-up of the bee attacking the SHB. She won and then I finished the SHB off with my hive tool for good measure!