SHB

[rast]

It may be the time of year or the freezes we had, but I went through 19 hives yesterday and did not see the first SHB. 12 of these hives had pollen patties on them for 2 weeks. A lot of the patties were gone or just a tad left. I renewed them and put them on the rest. I cut the patties and adjust the size to the size of the hive by guess work.

[G3farms]

After all of the hard freeze weather we have had I saw several very large mature SHB that dead and the bees had pushed them out to the landing board. I have not been in any of the hives yet but they are looking hopeful.

G3

[sqkcrk]

That could be good news for y'all. I hope it is anyway.

[tecumseh]

rast writes:
It may be the time of year or the freezes we had

tecumseh:
that is what I would suspect. the harder the winter freeze the longer it takes the hive beetles to regain numbers. hot dry summers seems to keep them in check also.

if you have problems with shb at least in the early spring time I would suggest you burn all the debris that end up on the bottom board. I keep a old metal pan and some denatured alcohol in my truck for the task.

[G3farms]

That is a good idea tecumseh, I think I brought the SHB into my yard with one of the cut outs I did.

G3

[sqkcrk]

Maybe G3, or they may have just flown in on their own.

[G3farms]

I need to get busy and bang out some screened bottom boards and set up a new hive stand out of some pipe. Three hives never did take off last year and can not figure out why, with the exception of SHB, finally had to combine two of them to make it through the winter. So far they are making it, I just do not know how since they are soooo lite. Something to play with I guess.

G3

[rast]

sqkcrk may be very right. They will fly in from quite a distance. What I have said before and what Tec brought up seems to be my best defense, full sun. Not always possible due to the landlords insistence on hive placement.

[tecumseh]

as rast suggest location is the first thing to consider and heavily shaded spots are not the best choice if you are in an active shb area. I think (again ain't absolutely certain) that limiting organic buildup in terms of leaves or grass around the hives seems to also discourage the buildup of shb in large numbers.

[G3farms]

Well the nuc did not make it, they froze out, I tink they really had a bigger problem with mites. They had plenty of stores to make it to spring, 3 of the five frames had capped honey or syrup in it.

G3

[tecumseh]

I usually discover G3 when I find a small nuc that freezes out at the first really cold spell that the queen didn't get mated properly. I will usually dig around in the small cluster of dead bees until I find the queen and a good 9 time out of 10 the queen looks more like an unmated virgin than a functioning queen.

[G3farms]

I did not find a queen at all in the hive and now I am wondering if the little virgin (princess) queen I found walking around on the ground about a week ago, might have come from that nuc.

G3

[fatbeeman]

what I would do is put in a shb trap into your nuc or hive after you do a cut out. put in boric acid to prevent and kill them boogers. I have lot of nuc's in my shaded area mostly pines.shb's don't seem to be a problem.even the state inspector said he was surprised that they don't over run nuc's.
Don
look at my videos on u-tube type in fatbeeman to view

[G3farms]

Here is fatbeeman's you tube video of his SHB trap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_KDPp8H6PU

Tell us where the boric acid can be bought?

Might be good to mention that the sign board needs to be the larger hole size, I have seen some that is thin and adult beetles might not fit inside.

Thanks for the video fatbeeman.

G3

[fatbeeman]

I buy mine online at the chem store, seems to be a better quality then over the counter.
Don

[Charles]

Hey G3 just an FYI, if you look at the bbcodes you'll see a youtube button, if you put your youtube link inside those tags you can embed the movie right on the forum:

[G3farms]

Noted! Thanks Charles for the tip.

G3