Location:  1/2 way between Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama, USA.  What I'm seeing.  We have small hive beetles (SHB) here.  Fact.  Most of the time the colonies will handle the SHB population. 

What I am seeing is the the SHB seem to utilize the slots in the slotted bars on the top of the frames for evacuation centers.  When I pop the tops of some of my hives, I don't see any SHBs but when I start to manipulate frames that have slotted top bars, the SHBs just seem to start pouring out of those slots.  One frame might harbor fifteen to twenty beetles.  I'm not purchasing any more of those frames because they don't fit into my management plans (grooved top, side, and bottom bars with wax coated plastic foundation), but I'm just about to the point where I'm going to take pans of hot, melted wax out to my hives and start sealing those groves so as to deny the SHBs that location as a refuge.  I'm also noting that in my frames with foundation that the SHBs will also hole up in the slots where the foundation is inserted until the bees can draw the foundation out and deny them that place of refuge.  

WISH SOMEONE WOULD DEVELOP AN EXTERNAL SHB TRAP.

Mike in LA


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