I have had experience with SHB for at least a decade (perhaps longer)
in upstate New York (about 20 miles north of Albany).  First exposure
was when buying nucs from South Carolina.  I asked the seller if I
might be concerned about SHB?  The response was, "How many do you want
per nuc?"  Fact is, SHB is a part of the game.  The yard where I hived
the nucs had an initial and massive break out in a nuc that
overheated, died, and it took me a few days to get to the dead nuc.
The SHB larvae "boiled" in the nuc box.  I burned everything.  I have
never had problems with SHB in that yard again.  Soil type: clay.

I had SHB in another yard, consistently worse from year to year, I
moved out of that yard for reasons not related to SHB.  Soil type:
sand.  No explanation as to where the SHB came from or why they got
worse from year to year.  Infestation got bad enough that I started
using SHB traps.  I found the traps ineffective.

Third yard had problems two years ago; no explanation where they came
from or why they have been getting worse.  Soil type clay.

Biggest problem has been in the extraction room.  Advice is bring in
fewer supers and extract faster.  I had many super with a backlog to
the extractor, and ended up with a BAD infestation of SHB, which I had
to deal with by putting the supers into a freezer.  Days of freezing
(four?) addressed the outbreak, but freezing and thawing and then
extracting was way more work than would be harvesting in smaller
batches.

I have not had problems with supers post extraction.

So, where is the problem coming/growing from?  I suspect that SHB is
surviving winters in upstate NY, where we get feet of snow and weeks
of freezing weather, not uncommon to go below 0dF for days in a row.
The yard closest to my extraction facility, which is also the yard
where I fist saw SHB and the worst infestation I ever saw ("boiling
larvae") has never been a repetitive problem.  The yards I have the
worst problem with are the yards most distance from home base.

I got packages this spring from Georgia (a month later than promised,
but that's a different story) and I found one beetle in 30 packages.
The beetle was atop the feeder can.  I am sure there were more beetles
in the packages.

Conclusions?  They're here, they're queer, get used to them.  Extract
quickly!  Where do they come from?  At this point I'd observe they're
part of the game (like it or not).  I know some will say it's another
bane of migratory beekeeping and packaged bees.  It may also look like
my MO could be part of the problem.  No contest.

As far as Allen's question: "re-cage the queens and destroy the
original packaging and attendants", I don't know if people are doing
that.  In individual queen cages with attendants, SHB would be visible
in the queen cages.  In battery boxes, SHB would be more obscure in
the package.

Aaron Morris - I think I'll catch a lot of flack from this post.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm