Real Bummer

[Keith13]

Well Sunday morning I went out to the bee yard I had to do some routine chores and I had plans to cut out and hive the swarm that took up residence in my swarm trap. It didn’t really go as planned the swarm moved in a few weeks back and I was waiting on some hives to arrive in the mail so I had put off doing the transfer for 2 or 3 weeks until my boxes came in. Sunday when I went to retrieve the trap I didn’t notice any bee activity at the hole. Also the trap had shifted a bit. I went on up the ladder and taped the hole just to make sure I didn’t get a face full of bees and took the trap back to my truck to see what was up. When I got it back and opened it up it was a mess with SHB larva I mean a total waste. I felt so bad I only hope the bees left when the trap shifted and not because of the beetles moving in. at this yard in my other hives I have never seen a SHB. I felt like I let those bees down.

For revenge I set the whole trap on fire burned those suckers to a crisp that made me feel a little better but not much

Keith

[wayseer]

Yes, I can imagine how you felt.  I had a similar experience but went about it slightly differently.

On inspect a nuc (5fr) I was dismayed to see the damage done by SHB - it was a mess.  I sorted out the salvageable frames and killed off the larve I could find on those frames and transferred them to a new clean nuc.  The rest of the frames I wrapped in plastic and put in the freezer for 48 hours.  The SHB running around now were drowned and the nuc scrubed out with det and water and left in the sun to dry. 

Since then I us AJs beetle trap which I find effective. 

Dealing with any livestock one must expect losses however careful we plan our operation.  Burning the infrastructure may relieve the anger at the time but is not cost effective in the long run.

Still, it is from such disasters that we learn.

[Scadsobees]

Did the swarm trap start out with any comb in it?  Probably the bees were driven out by the SHB.  Not much you can do about it.    If you did have old comb in it, just don't leave any with pollen or honey, that will attract them.

I burned a couple of frames of SHB larvae this year too, squished almost hundreds, and vacuumed and drowned another several hundred.  Some satisfaction, but surely not as much as a nice booming hive would have been :-x

Rick

[Keith13]

no it was just an empty swarm trap. the bees started to build in it I found a few combs when I opened it up