Been at war with Small Hive Beetles since August of last year when they took two of my six hives. The invasion was partly my fault, I had a bumper crop of honey on and didn't pull it soon enough. By the time I got into the hives two were trashed and slimed and the yard was infected with SHB. Since then it has been war which I was loosing a hive at a time.
Starting in March the SHBs came back despite Beetle Blaster traps and keeping my last 4 hives tight and in the sun. I had one hive abscond and just fly away the first week of April because there were so many larva in the wax. All the frames were trashed and needed to be tossed. The next hive in line showed SHB larva two weeks later even with Beetle traps and Mite Away strips installed per instructions. I combined the weak hive with one of the last two trying to save the bees.
By the end of May I had treated the bee yard with ground drench to break the life cycle of the SHB by killing any larval stage in the ground, should of done it at the end of last year but didn't realize just how nasty SHBs really are. I also treated any area which I had placed an infected super to kill any larva that dropped off during the cleanup. Even with breaking the life cycle of the SHB I still had to deal with the adults who can live up to six months and can fly 5 miles or better.
I'm now down to just two hives and am seeing more SHBs appear in them each inspection. The Beetle Blaster traps are getting filled up almost twice a month but I'm still loosing the war.
First week of June the weaker hive absconds and I was able to catch it in a nuc box. The SHB's had move into the hive over only two days and overwhealmed the hive driving it out. Now I'm worried and have realized that within another month or so I won't be a bee keeper any more, everything I've tried hasn't stopped them, just slowed them down. :(
Then I realized that the SHB's must invade the hive through the entrance at night when the bees can't defend the hive properly. Since I felt that I was going to loose my last hive anyway out of desperation I reduced the entrance down to two inches and jambed a Mite Away strip in the opening posistioned so that anything that entered the hive would come into contact with it. The next day after only 12 hours the bottom tray was completely black with dead SHB's and there must of been almost a thousand piled up under the entrance on the tray. It looked like someone had spilled a bottle of pepper corns on the tray. The second 24 hours gave me another large SHB kill but by the third day thier numbers were dwindling. By the end of the week the SHB kill count was in the dozens not in the hundreds, by the second week they were gone!!! I don't know how many SHBs were killed but I would guess that there must of been three or four ounces of the little vermin taken out during the attack on my last hive.
The rest of this year will be rebuilding my yard and maybe I'll be able to harvest enough honey from the last hive to get through till next year. I'm working the mini me nuc I saved and picked up a 5 frame nuc from a local seller. The SHB's will be back but I'm ready for them this time (or so I hope)
I hope that posting this will help some Beek save thier hives, just don't let your guard down even for a second.
It was ugly