A Small Hive Beetle Story

If you make a mistake and no one knows it, should you tell people? Yes, if you are a

scientist, failures provide data. I’m not a scientist but you can learn from my mistakes.

I had a big colony go queenless and missed it for a few weeks. They did not start drone

layers, but Small Hive Beetles (SHB) laid lots of eggs and larva in 5 frames. I pulled those out and put in a mated caged queen. But, the SHB had spread and occupied more frames as the colony was small

by this time and there were 3 deeps of comb. Robbing started and the next day I found that

the bees had all absconded. The caged queen was fine.

So, don’t put in a queen on a big hive with few bees. I should have consolidated the bees onto 5 frames in a NUC and put the queen there. The bees could have defended that area.

Beside the above learning experience, I found something else. If you have multiple boxes of

comb that is partially slimed what do you do? Most of the frames were only slimed in the

center area. I spread the frames out so there were 8 frames in each 10 frame box. I placed

the boxes on top of really big strong colonies. By the next day the slime was gone.

So, if the slime area is not too big and there are lots and lots of bees, they can and will clean it up.

But, you must monitor them daily to be sure more SHB does not hatch and make a bigger

mess.

Learn for other people’s mistakes, they are less costly.

~ Brian Gallagher