Roof Top Hives With Small Hive Beetles

Since a summer beehive is loaded with moisture from both bee respiration and drying nectar the hive can quickly become a damp mold infested environment that is not healthy for bees or good for making honey.

Roof top hives with small hive beetles.

As bees chase the adult beetles the beetles hopefully scurry inside the slit. This video shows me breaking open a test hive which was using swiffer sheets to control small hive beetles. Because of this it is generally thought that small hive beetles are an issue in less than strong hives. The bees are literally out of your hair when they are placed on the roof.

If you leave some hives untreated the small hive beetles may enter those hives once driven out of the beehives where you apply the wintergreen oil preparation. Otherwise the colony would have stopped that adult female from flying in in the first place. Wintergreen oil is the most commonly used oil against small hive beetles. To use it in a hive you should combine it with some honey and vegetable shortening and then dab a small amount on the frames and corners of your beehive boxes.

I was amazed at around 200 dead or dying beetles. The stressed hive is concerned with other things happening within the hive and this is the perfect distraction for the beetle to take up residence. Warm air holds moisture and the warmer the air the more moisture it can hold. A ventilated gabled roof is one of my favorite pieces of beekeeping equipment.

Another advantage of rooftop hives is that they seem less plagued by ants and hive beetles. Both of these pests live in the soil so it makes sense that you d see less of them in a rooftop apiary. Fill the 2 larger compartments about 1 3 1 2 full of mineral oil vegetable oil or beetle oil. Treat all the beehives in your apiary with this preparation of wintergreen oil for best results.

The beetles were collected from a weak honey bee colony in charleston county. The beetles will be drawn to the shortening and honey and killed by the wintergreen oil. Small hive beetles or aethina tumida first arrive into a hive as adults. Nitidulidae sap beetles.

The small hive beetle has also been discovered in florida and georgia in may and june 1998 respectively. In july 1998 small hive beetles were first identified in south carolina. Take care when installing and removing you do not want to spill oil in the hive. Studies have shown that the small hive beetle can smell a distressed hive up to 6 miles away so when you open the top of the hive and those pheromones get out the beetles are coming.