Here are some dead hive beetles, smashed with the mighty hive tool!
In this second picture, you can see a bee in the lower right hand corner curling herself around the hive beetle in an effort to deter him.
I must have smashed about 30 of the horrible creatures and then left them for dead on the inner cover.
I have some AJ's beetle eaters and installed them on the three deck hives. The AJ's beetle eater is a black container of oil closed with a plastic screen to let the hive beetles in but keep the bees out. I will look later in the week and see if they are working. It hangs between the frames and looks like a large black zipper.
I was opening the hives to get honey to harvest. The pickings were slim - I took five frames of honey off of Bermuda because in the 10 frame super, that's all there were. It's a bad year for honey. There were tons of SHB that came into the house with the honey frames. I must have smashed at least 10 -12 on each frame of honey.
Horrors!
Linda, I love your blog! I'm a first year beekeeper in Arkansas, and I cannot get rid of these beetles. I use a similar product to the one in your post called "the beetle blaster" and I've made the Sonny Chidester trap, but I am only slowing them down. I'm determined not to use any pesticides. Do you have any other suggestions?
ReplyDeleteI kill as many with my hive tool as the traps catch!
Thanks,
Jill in Conway, AR