small hive beetles are such an awful bee hive pest. there must be some way to combat and minimize the damage.....

this is my observation.

the hives build up in the spring wonderfully. the beetles really dont get outrageous until after the hives have sealed thebulk of the honey. even though i selectively take out the full combs and replace them with new or extracted frames. i think/theorize that the beetles are left alone on the sealed combs to lay their eggs and mature the larvae.

i put boric acid on the ground around the hives in order to attempt to break the cycle by killing the pupae stage in the soil.

in another yard i put down some insecticide / grub killer

you couldnt go thru all of your hives weekly so the devestating surprise comes with no notice.

on a sunday i went thru the hives and they were loaded with bees and unsealed honey.

by thursday they had both absconded and were loaded with beetle larvae.

2 hives contained 40 pierco frames. i pressure washed the frames, wiping away 2 yrs of nurturing from 4 frame nukes. plus aother 3 nuc that were just getting going. to go from 15 hives to 10 is heartbreaking.

the bees lose interest in swarming after july which is also the end of the major honey season.

this is also when the beetles do their damage. the bees seem to kill time until the goldenrod season when they load up with the smelly stuff(goldenrod honey) that gets them thru the winter.

can i/we alter our hive management to use this to minimize/lessen the losses.

thoughts/suggestions i am willing to try most anything.

david