?

> Good we do not have Small Hive Bettle (SHB) yet at Chile, but I was
> wondering if SHB should be catalogued as a Pest or rather just a hive
> Parasite.

> What do you think?
Know? or have read?

My experience with SHB began on the same day as Jeff Pettis & David W.. I 
traveled to Bell Honey in Florida to observe the *new* pest first hand. in 
the fall of 1998.

Despite what some say the SHB (except for a small amount) spend most of 
their time outside the hive.
They travel with swarms and many believe (myself) that when a swarm passes 
by the SHB follows the bees to the new location.

In a holding yard SHB is mostly found in weak hives but usually not in large 
numbers. In a strong hive you see SHb try to avoid the bees and stay on the 
outer parts of the brood nest. In a weak hive the SHb moves freely through 
the hive. I am not quite sure what the SHb are doing but they seem to simply 
be going in and out of open cells and every once in a while a bee will chase 
the SHB. I have seen a bee give food to a SHb but in my opinion a *very* 
rare occurrence.

SHB causes little trouble until the SHB decides to lay eggs. A strong hive 
will remove eggs and larva. A weak hive ignores and before long the hive is 
slimmed. The larva tunnel through the brood comb , the honey ferments and 
the whole mess smells like vomit. The bees will not clean up from my 
experience .

On that fall day in 1998 while Jeff & David were catching swarms to see if 
SHB traveled in swarms. Horace Bell and I were observing SHB in an 
observation hive. We made an important discovery which we told the USDA 
about but I have never saw in print.

We could take an observation hive with SHB in it and shake the OB hive and 
SHB would start laying eggs. Our conclusion was disturbing the weak colony 
would cause SHB to try and reproduce.

I reported our observations to a few of my queen producer friends and they 
said that once I had pointed out the fact they observed that after queens 
were caged from nucs many would be found slimmed when checked on the next 
trip.

When slimming starts ( my observations) the SHb in the area seemed to know 
what is going on ( not sure in pheromones or smell?) and all arrive to lay 
their eggs. L. Cutts (retired head of Florida apiary service) reported his 
people quit counting at 8000 SHb in one Florida  hive being slimmed.

There are many designs of SHb traps around ( approved and unapproved and 
mostly in use in queen rearing operations) but strong hives works for the 
most part in commercial operations.

The two areas of the most concern are SHB slimming weak colonies & nucs and 
SHb slimming supers in the honey house.

We have discussed SHb in the honey house at great length in the archives.

The above is SHB 101 .


bob 

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