hive beetle control opinions, please

[Ben Framed]

animal if you was trying to post a picture, it did not come through..

Phillip

[BeeMaster2]

Animal,
Sounds like a SHB. They have little paddles on their antennas that they use to trick the bees into feeding them when they are in the hive.
Jim Altmiller

[The15thMember]

I'm not sure if fat boy here is SHB or a look-alike  ... not a bug guy ... It has the clubbed antenna, oval shape, a crescent-ish shaped head, wing covers stop just short of the butt, ... and way faster than I expected for a beetle .. haven't read anything about speed of SHB .... but this thing was fast!

Oh they are totally fast, they run around like crazy people.  Like Jim said, in the dark of the hive, the beetles try to act like bees to keep a low profile.  But when you crack the lid, and the light reveals their true identity, they panic and run, and bees often chase after them.  It'd be funny if the little jokers weren't such a hassle. 

[animal]

Ben .. was going to put up a picture, but couldn't get a good shot on something that small and that dead.. The microscope is an old kid's project and has analog video feed through an RCA jack and never bothered to convert to digital because they grew up.. frame capture to digital would be a pita with what I have.

I read the thread "SHB" in this section and saw the great photo Michael Bush posted of one of the similar but harmless species. This thing doesn't look the same to me at all...
What I called the head in an earlier post is actually the thorax. The head doesn't stick out like on Bush's photo. It is tucked in to the point it looks more like a face on the thorax. The joint between abdomen and thorax looks almost nonexistent. The body shape is almost a perfectly smooth oval dome. The antennae have a curve immediately after the club end rather than being straight like in his photo. And the legs look fatter.
Interwebs says the adult SHB can be 5-7mm ... MS State University says 3-6mm ... which would be around 1/4" long for a big one, so I'm back to thinking this one is SHB.

dropped him in a medicine bottle with formaldehyde in case I wanto to look again, but for now, go about ways to kill them.

[The15thMember]

Ben .. was going to put up a picture, but couldn't get a good shot on something that small and that dead.. The microscope is an old kid's project and has analog video feed through an RCA jack and never bothered to convert to digital because they grew up.. frame capture to digital would be a pita with what I have.

I read the thread "SHB" in this section and saw the great photo Michael Bush posted of one of the similar but harmless species. This thing doesn't look the same to me at all...
What I called the head in an earlier post is actually the thorax. The head doesn't stick out like on Bush's photo. It is tucked in to the point it looks more like a face on the thorax. The joint between abdomen and thorax looks almost nonexistent. The body shape is almost a perfectly smooth oval dome. The antennae have a curve immediately after the club end rather than being straight like in his photo. And the legs look fatter.
Interwebs says the adult SHB can be 5-7mm ... MS State University says 3-6mm ... which would be around 1/4" long for a big one, so I'm back to thinking this one is SHB.

dropped him in a medicine bottle with formaldehyde in case I wanto to look again, but for now, go about ways to kill them.

Keep in mind that, like spiders curl up in a death position, the beetles kind of stiffen up into their maximum armored position when they die.  Here is a picture of a hive beetle alive vs. dead or perhaps moving vs. in defense mode. 

[animal]

yes .. to me, those pictures look exactly like what I've got except for a little darker .. teasing the head out with a needle .. it didn't quite come out as far as in the live picture, but that makes sense. Didn't try to pry apart abdomen and thorax ... At least the thing seemed freshly dead and not crumbly yet.

Maybe the 1/8" screen works because the bees chase them through it, rather than them falling through ..?

[animal]

ran across something about 30 minutes ago at a company called Mann Lake ...

this is kind of funny, or silly as the case may be...

Earlier today, I went ahead and made a mini termite shield type thing ... figured it might not work but it's easy and basically free ... took about 20 minutes to cut the metal out of a piece of aluminum drip edge scrap using a utility knife and straight edge ... bent it with the heel of my hand using the edge of a board for a form .. . cut a wood spacer frame out of a piece of scrap 1/2" x 3/4" s4s molding .. screwed it together and produced what is nearly identical to this ...

https://www.mannlakeltd.com/beetle-baffle/?sku=DC870&gclid=Cj0KCQjwho-lBhC_ARIsAMpgModlqX7VEQh4wDOHytjn3SYM-m6KphZjkoRqY7v8auVi90n-yKRXfEwaAkS0EALw_wcB

Their version is galvanized steel and is the steel piece only ! ... s4s spacer and bottom board not included ! 28 bucks !!!

maybe not so silly? Theirs would be a lot tougher, being galvanized ...  but still, some of this stuff is a racket !  imo

[Michael Bush]

I never see more than a few small hive beetles at a time.  Usually not more than one at a time.  Yet a weak hive under the wrong conditions (right conditions?) can quickly get slimed.  I've bee in healthy hives in Southern states on the eastern seaboard and seen thousand of small hive beetles.  The number of beetles seems unrelated to them getting slimed.  But the strength of the hive (read "density of bees") is what seems to matter.  If you see at least a few bees on every comb, they will probably be fine.  If you see a whole box with no bees in it, they are in danger.  I do use nemotodes every few years to try to keep the numbers down.  But the main thing is space management.

[cao]

One or two Shbs no problem, just smash them. 

10 or 20 in a hive, time to get serious about trapping and killing them.  Put beetle trays, swifter sheets, screen bottom board w/oil in it, nematodes or other ground drench treatment.  Do something because they won't go away and it doesn't take much of a setback in the hive for the shbs to get a foothold.  Once they do, every beetle around will flock to that hive. 

At 100-200 shbs in a hive, it is time to get serious.  Reduce hive, pull out extra frames of pollen.  Pack them down so there is wall to wall bees.  To me, much more than a couple hundred beetles(seen) means the hive is close to collaspe if nothing is done.  Remember if you see 200 the there are probably several times that amount unseen.

Any more than that and the hive starts to smell wrong.  Even before the sickly sweet smell of a slimed hive, I have noticed that the typical hive smell is not right and the normal upkeep or cleanlyness of the hive starts to faulter. 

[The15thMember]

ran across something about 30 minutes ago at a company called Mann Lake ...

this is kind of funny, or silly as the case may be...

Earlier today, I went ahead and made a mini termite shield type thing ... figured it might not work but it's easy and basically free ... took about 20 minutes to cut the metal out of a piece of aluminum drip edge scrap using a utility knife and straight edge ... bent it with the heel of my hand using the edge of a board for a form .. . cut a wood spacer frame out of a piece of scrap 1/2" x 3/4" s4s molding .. screwed it together and produced what is nearly identical to this ...

https://www.mannlakeltd.com/beetle-baffle/?sku=DC870&gclid=Cj0KCQjwho-lBhC_ARIsAMpgModlqX7VEQh4wDOHytjn3SYM-m6KphZjkoRqY7v8auVi90n-yKRXfEwaAkS0EALw_wcB

Their version is galvanized steel and is the steel piece only !

Oh, I wasn't understanding what you were describing before.  (I'm not familiar with termite shields.  ).  I have heard people who like these, although I've never used one personally.

... s4s spacer and bottom board not included ! 28 bucks !!!

maybe not so silly? Theirs would be a lot tougher, being galvanized ...  but still, some of this stuff is a racket !  imo

And that's without the catastrophically high shipping.  But what else would us poor souls who can't build spend money on? 

[animal]

Lifted the lid just now ..
2 in the inner lid trap .. left them in there to see if they can get out before they die.
none on the swiffer sheets, placed at opposite corners
1 had the audacity to land on the porch of the hive while I was standing there ... squished

the two corners without sheets had 4 or 5 bees really interested in the end of the frame. Sure enough, one corner had 2 beetles, the other had 5. Took a popsicle stick sized piece of wood, reached in the gap and squished them... a couple of bees grabbed a dead one off the stick and tore apart what was left of him, giving him the medieval death he deserved

Anyway, looks to me like I'm in a bad area for these things and the hive is healthy enough to hold them at bay for now.. Found some 1/8" cloth yesterday, so they'll have a bottom screen oil tray by this weekend, and I'll install the mini bug shield thing at the same time, just for giggles.
fingers crossed here, but not worried ...

Thanks very much for all the help and input !

[Bill Murray]

Yes your in a bad area for these things.

First off the bees will deal with them if you give them a tad bit help. Go buy a box of swiffer sheets. DRY, no fethers ETC. cut them into appox. 1.5 inch strips install them overthe ends of your frames top box. Bees will chew them, beetles get caught, change as necessary.

[cao]

Be diligent if you see several shbs in your hives.  Even strong hives go through times of weakness.  I took apart 2 hives that got overrun by beetles.  One was slimed pretty bad, the other didn't have as much resources in the hive to slime.  One was 4 medium boxes tall.  Just added the last box a few weeks ago because they were packed full of bees.  The other was 3 boxes tall and I think they may have swarmed and I don't know if they had a queen or not before the beetles took over.  All of my hives have pans under then with either oil or diatomaceous earth in them.

[Bill Murray]

First off I have hives that can deal with them and some that cant.

Usually the ones that cant are either because of a bee space issue,(they cant corral the beetles up top), or a bee compression issue, (not enough bees for the space  left them)
The other issue may be genetics.

[Ben Framed]

https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=56572.msg519062#msg519062

[Ben Framed]

First off I have hives that can deal with them and some that cant.

Usually the ones that cant are either because of a bee space issue,(they cant corral the beetles up top), or a bee compression issue, (not enough bees for the space  left them)
The other issue may be genetics.

As I stated earlier, The thing about SHB; they can invade and take over quickly.. From having just a few beetles one day and then boom, a sudden infesting invasion! I have observed hives in the late evening just before dark, here in my area and could not 'believe' the steady flow and numbers coming into a particular hive.
If the numbers coming in, are abundantly overwhelming numbers, it may not matter that bee space is tight, numbers invading can be so high, that to keep the SHB corralled may not be possible numbers wise, even genetics can not overcome an overwhelming invasion... 
'Thankfully' Paus and 'Beemaster2' introduced me to hive bottom 'oil trays'. I think the oil trays serve a two part win. The bees will naturally chase beetles, many times as you pointed out they will be corralled. If the number of an sudden invasion hit a hive the bees will corral them into the oil pans to their demise. Plus the oil pans naturally attract the Beatles is my understanding as well. This pretty much takes care of them has been my experience, and without poison ...

Phillip

[animal]

Here's what I ended up with for a bottom screen assembly ... forgot to take a picture of the first one. This one is for the hive-in-waiting (original one that was poisoned).

1/8" mesh full-bottom screen
Just under screen is a sheet metal deflector to funnel beetles into the kill pan, since the pan is smaller than the hive bottom. It's just a piece of galvanized drip edge with the nailing side trimmed to 3/8"
height of front opening is 3/4", a 1/2" tall lintel is above that with "termite shield thingie" all the way around ...making total wall height from screen 1 - 1/4".
The protrusion of the shield is 3/16" on the inside and 5/16 on the outside... except on the doorway : 3/16"  on both sides.
Front porch extends 2 - 1/4" from front wall for a landing pad and to accept an entrance reducer.
Bottom tray is lined with a disposable aluminum sheet-cake pan (standard size for a 1/2 sheet) so ... easy to replace

The notches on each side of the porch are so it will fit in the steel frame hive stand

So .. Is the 1 - 1/4" wall height ok ?
or do I need to make the screen floor angle up towards the back ?

or do you guys see other changes I should make ?

So far the bees don't seem to mind the other one (exactly like this), but it's only caught about a dozen or so. We've also had rain almost every day for the past 2 weeks. Have found only 2 beetles corralled up top in the corners since install. The dryer sheets haven't caught a single beetle, but I have seen some legs on them that looked more like beetle legs than bee legs. Was wondering if the bees are attacking ones that get stuck on the sheets. (the sheets are also store brand, not "swiffer" .. store was out of the name brand when I bought them.)

One thing that happened that was neat.. a beetle got away from me and fell onto the porch. Before I could smash it, a guard bee pounced, started wrestling it, rolled off onto the ground and continued fighting it until I lost sight of them in the grass.

[Ben Framed]

Your pictures look good animal from what I can see. I might be mistaken but I think Pause don't use complete floor covered oil pans either, and he has good results.

{If I am mistaken Pause, please correct me.}

Phillip

[cao]

I use a kind of hybrid screen/solid bottom.  I bought some of the 1/8 sheet pan size aluminum pans, cut holes in solid bottoms and mounted cleats under to hold the pan.  I have found that these smaller pans are just as effective as full screen bottoms.  With the great benefit of using much less oil and your hives don't need to be perfectly level as they do if you have a full pan under.

[animal]

I use a kind of hybrid screen/solid bottom.  I bought some of the 1/8 sheet pan size aluminum pans, cut holes in solid bottoms and mounted cleats under to hold the pan.  I have found that these smaller pans are just as effective as full screen bottoms.  With the great benefit of using much less oil and your hives don't need to be perfectly level as they do if you have a full pan under.

Thanks cao. Good to know it doesn't have to be a full bottom screen..
Did you recess the screen ? or Is the screen flush with the bottom ?

Thanks Ben, I'm hoping these things will do. Also made them where they can be taken apart fairly easily to tweak or try different things.