Allen asked "What I don't understand, I guess, is that beekeepers who winter
in cold regions
seem to be reporting that without repeated introductions,  infestations of
SHB
either are no problem, or disappear altogether."

I live just a few miles from Aaron Morris.  Long, cold winters.  I'd agree
that in this climate "SHB ... are no problem", *outside of the honey house.*

While SHB readily survive the winter as adults, they do not seem to be
capable of reproducing in such numbers that they become a problem on the
scale of wax moths; which themselves are not a real serious problem.

We trap a lot of pollen, and it is not unusual for us to have 15 traps in a
single yard, and up to three yards with traps.  I'll frequently find that
just 1-3 traps in a yard will have SHB larvae in the pollen drawer.
Sometimes hundreds in a single drawer.  (I bag them along with the pollen,
freeze, and then throw in the garbage.)  They will persist for 7-10 days,
and then disappear.  I've gone into the brood nest to see evidence of larvae
or beetles, but have yet to find them.  I've also found that if a 5-frame
nuc dies out, SHB will take over and there will not be any wax moth damage.


One year, early on, I got careless with honey supers.  I am used to finding
dozens of fat wax moth larvae in such cases, but was totally unprepared for
thousands of SHB larvae.  Never again.  Now we do not bring in more honey
than we can extract in 7-10 days and with those parameters neither SHB or
wax moth is a problem.

Like wax moth, I wish we didn't have SHB but it is really not a serious
problem.

Lloyd

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