re: "a couple of inches of sand spread under all the hives in an apiary" to stop Small Hive Beetle.
Just under the hives?  No.  The studies I've seen show that SHB doesn't generally pupate right under the hive.  Even in moist soil conditions, the hive creates a "rain shadow" that dries out the ground underneath it.  SHB larvae travel at least tens of meters and up to 200 meters to pupate.  You'd have to sand an area well around your entire apiary.  They also pupate at a depth of between 1 and 30 cm so you'd have to lay down a lot of sand.

For a single hive and assuming a 10 meter border, that works out to just over 100 cubic meters of sand (135 cubic yards).  And that probably wouldn't even slow the SHB down.  A 20 meter buffer would require 400 cubic meters of sand.  Call that 85 dump truck loads, maybe?  And that still won't stop them.  A 100 meter border will require almost 10,000 cubic meters or somewhere north of 2000 dump truck loads.  That might do some good.  To sand the full 200 meters radius to a depth more than they will dig would take over 8000 dump truck loads.  Long before that point, not only have I covered my own lawn, I've covered up my neighbors' on both sides.  And for the price of that much sand, I'd hope there were better alternatives.
 Mike Rossander

   

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