Small Hive Beetle (shb) how fast can they reproduce?

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Just how fast can these shb reproduce?
Situation:
On July 12, this year, I created a 5 frame nuc.  Four frames of brood and one frame of food and I saw one shb.   Each frame full of attendees, also I shook extra bees in and added a beautiful queen.  Queen released next day and all seems well.  Two days later the nuc was robbed.  I immediately reduced the entrance to 3/8 inch but the damage was already done.  I moved the nuc after dark to a new location with another frame of food out of site of my apiry.  Again robbers found and keyed in on this particular Nuc.  I have 6 other 5 frame nucs, no problems. 

Now I am frustrated and determined to save this hive so I placed the hive in a new 5 frame nuc with a screened bottom (made for queenless starter hive) added water in a sponge and have controlled entrance device: full open, ventilation only, or queen excluder, and again, presented a frame of food, third time btw.

So, now, July 16, time to clean the old nuc (4 days old) with 50-100 dead bees in the bottom of the nuc. The bees died as a result of robbing is my GUESS.   I could not believe my eyes::::  there were 100's of shb larva, 1/8 inch crawling all over the dead bees.  The nuc was 4 days old, that is what has me so surprised.  Enlighten me as to the reproduction of the shb???  Yes, the nuc was weak from robbing, but 4 days is alarming.

This area is Northern Arkansas, I trap beetles with Freeman Bottom Board and have caught as many as 20 beetles in one night in a single hive.  I have no way to determine how many beetles avoided my trap.  So understand we are talking a lot of beetles.  You beeks in the North are blessed with few shb. My hives are strong, some 3 deeps with supers and I keep beetles to a few per hive.  I use freeze spray (minus 62F) to kill individual beetles when I conduct inspections.

How do you beeks manage shb in places like Florida or Arizona?
Thank you, thank you so much in advance for your reply. 

[Michael Bush]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_hive_beetle#Life_history

Small hive beetles are not an obligate parasite of honey bees.  They can and do reproduce on rotting fruit.  And they can lay a lot of eggs so the population can grow quickly.  In my experience you either have no small hive beetle larvae or you have thousands...

[sc-bee]

3 days to hatch--- fly 5 miles

-Strong hives
-Full sun location
-Hard packed ground (no loose debris and shb like fertile soil)
-Limit unused comb space
-Swiffer (micro sheets) in the top of supers
-Breed from bees that harass the shb not ignore them

[GSF]

A fellow bee keeper in our club mentioned something like this. However, he had a full and very strong hive. He said he checked it and about a week later it was slimed. I had a moderately populated hive which I checked for honey on the 15th. This past weekend it to was slimed.

You ever have one of those locations that just don't work? This is the spot. It is closer to the woods and gets more shade than the rest. although it isn't that much shade. No hive has ever boomed at that place. My hives are inches apart and the further down the line you go the better they get.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Update July 24th.  Over the weekend I successfully combined (newspaper) the nuc with a stronger queenless hive.  This morning, the 24th I check the combined hive, I did not see any beetles and queen is doing fine.  I will add a Freeman bottom board in a few days after things settle down.
Thanks for the input.g

[BeeMaster2]

Often times what triggers the beetles to overload a hive is when they swarm. This stresses the hive and the beetles can detect this stress. Anything that stresses a hive can trigger this stress can cause
This, especially true of hive inspections.
Jim

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Thanks Jim:  AGREED!  I have noticed the beetles prefer (attack) certain hives.  Like the nuc mentioned in first post.  I had 5 other nucs, little problem, 15 hives double deep, very few beetles.  👍