Cheryl and Bill J. report that some nucs from the Florida bee farm had small hive beetles. These pests multiply quickly and, if not treated, can decimate a hive. Everyone who bought nucs should be on the look out for these menaces. Finding these critters is fairly easy. As you’ll see from the following video they are large enough to be easily seen with the unaided eye.
Now that you know what you’re looking for what should you do if your nuc is infected? It turns out there are a few tried and true treatments. One, which you saw in the above video, is a trap and kill method where beetles are lured into the trap and poisoned. Our members Bill and Cheryl J. have done some homework for us and are currently treating their nucs using an external trap. More about that in a moment.
You’ll remember Michael Embrey of the University of Maryland spoke to us in March about how the small hive beetle has been working its way northward and becoming more acclimated to our regional weather. Once thought to die-off during cold winters, turns out the small hive beetle has figured out it’s nice and cozy right in the centers of wintering bee clusters. So now there’s no guarantee cold weather will do anything to help give us a clean slate next spring.
Bill and Cheryl also note that treating small hive beetle isn’t just an at-the-hive activity. If you extract honey yourself making certain the honey house is clean and pest free is an absolute must. The honey house is the easiest way to cross contaminate hives, so it’s important it be kept clean, sanitary and bug free.
At the hive, beekeepers are using everything from pesticides applied to the ground around the hive to various in-hive treatments like boric acid and, believe it or not, Borax laundry soap, to poison the beetles. I found the Borax treatment particularly interesting because it apparently has the same effect as boric acid and it’s not harmful to the bees. Unfortunately, as Bill and Cheryl note, these are only stop-gap measures. A more complete approach, one that addresses both the proliferation of this pest in the hive and the lessening of stress on the bees–who chase these critters around in an effort to coral them–has to be employed.
There is a great article on the Big Island Beekeepers Association website written by Jerry Freeman. In the article, he describes his adventures combating and eventually defeating small hive beetle infestations in his apiary. I encourage you to read his account. When I did, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end! He’s a descriptive writer who pulls no punches describing the severity of the small hive beetle problem if allowed to go untreated.
Jerry is more than a good writer. He’s also an inventor and he’s developed a method of treatment that is quickly gaining traction in beekeeping circles. It’s remarkably simple and he reports a very high success rate in saving hives stricken with the problem. In the video below we meet Jerry as he describes his solution and demonstrates its use in the hive.
If you would like to see this treatment method for yourself, Bill and Cheryl have volunteered to demonstrate its use. Anyone interested should indicate so by posting a comment. If your nuc is infected and you want to get one of Jerry’s traps for yourself, go to http://www.freemanbeetletrap.com.
