Roof Top Hives With Small Hive Beetles

A ventilated gabled roof is one of my favorite pieces of beekeeping equipment.

Roof top hives with small hive beetles.

I was amazed at around 200 dead or dying beetles. Another advantage of rooftop hives is that they seem less plagued by ants and hive beetles. 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. 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.

The beetles will be drawn to the shortening and honey and killed by the wintergreen oil. This video shows me breaking open a test hive which was using swiffer sheets to control small hive beetles. 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. Nitidulidae sap beetles.

The small hive beetle has also been discovered in florida and georgia in may and june 1998 respectively. An adult female flies into the hive and begins to lay eggs. Wintergreen oil is the most commonly used oil against small hive beetles. As bees chase the adult beetles the beetles hopefully scurry inside the slit.

In july 1998 small hive beetles were first identified in south carolina. Fill the 2 larger compartments about 1 3 1 2 full of mineral oil vegetable oil or beetle oil. Both of these pests live in the soil so it makes sense that you d see less of them in a rooftop apiary. Warm air holds moisture and the warmer the air the more moisture it can hold.

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. 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. The beetles were collected from a weak honey bee colony in charleston county. Because of this it is generally thought that small hive beetles are an issue in less than strong hives.

The wintergreen oil kills the small hive beetles and makes them leave the beehive. Treat all the beehives in your apiary with this preparation of wintergreen oil for best results. There are 3 compartments and 2 of them have a small slit in the top. Otherwise the colony would have stopped that adult female from flying in in the first place.