A New Way to Kill SHB

[jredburn]

I lost a large cutout to SHB .  Again.
 I pulled a couple of frames this AM and the darn things were in the comb.  I decided to try a new approach to getting rid of them and stuck the comb in a large plastic bag.  I took a Propane torch and filled the bag with Propane gas and sealed the bag.  About two hours later the beetles were still crawling around just as happy as they could be.
Since Propane is a little hazardous to handle I thought,  Why not try carbon monoxide?  So I took the bag and started up the van.  I pushed all the air out of the bag and stuck it over  the tailpipe and filled it up, sealed it and thought "Die you suckers".
It did not work the away I thought it would.   BUT IT DID WORK.
Almost immediately the larva came out of the cavities of the comb and started crawling around and the beetles went bananas  also.   Where I thought there would be 30 or 40 beetle at the most, there were over a 100 and the larva were five times that.  What a mess.
 Four hours later the beetles started to die.    That is not a misprint , 4 hours in 100% carbon monoxide.  At six hours the beetles were dead and the larva were starting to die.  At eight  + hours the last of the larva quit moving.
WHAT I DON'T KNOW  is the effect on uncapped brood.   Capped brood and honey could be brushed off and then would be ready to return to the hive so the bees could clean them up.
If you have beetles (and everybody does) a large, strong hive can control the beetles but if you only have one colony and it swarms of the queen gets old, the beetles will overrun the hive is a couple of days.  So you could take every other frame out of a box, brush off all the bees and put it in a plastic bag (Hefty bags seal tighter than ziplock ones)and gas the whole frame overnight.  The next day take out the remaining frames and replace the clean ones. 
The carbon monoxide dissipates as soon as you open the bag so nothing goes into the hive.  There is no pesticide involved and the bees will clean up any debris that you don't knock off the comb.
It's also cheap.  It just takes time for the sucker to die.  They are very hard to kill.
If someone tries it, please post the results.
regards
Joe

[AllenF]

That seemed like a lot of work.  I like to just stick the bag in the freezer.  Amazing just how hard those buggers are to kill. 

[jaseemtp]

what about sealing em up with some dry ice? as it "melts" it would release all of the CO2 and that should kill em all and the CO2 wouldnt hurt the wax. Ohh CO2 = carbon dioxide

[jredburn]

jaseemtp,
That is an excellent idea.  I will probably steal    er      borrow it from you.
Thanks
Joe

[jaseemtp]

Joe if you use it let me know how it works. I got the idea from some one who was looking at long term storage of dry beans and rice. The thought was to place the dry food in a bucket then place a piece of card board on top and put the dry ice on the card board and close it up. When the dry ice "melts" it floods the container with co2 and smother any living thing on there.

[Sour Kraut]

Unless your vehicle was severly out-of-tune, the CO products out of the tailpipe would be next to nil.

CO-2 and H2-O yes; CO no

Gary