Roof Top Hives With Small Hive Beetles

Treat all the beehives in your apiary with this preparation of wintergreen oil for best results.

Roof top hives with small hive beetles.

A ventilated gabled roof is one of my favorite pieces of beekeeping equipment. The small hive beetle has also been discovered in florida and georgia in may and june 1998 respectively. Another advantage of rooftop hives is that they seem less plagued by ants and hive beetles. Because of this it is generally thought that small hive beetles are an issue in less than strong hives.

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. Small hive beetles or aethina tumida first arrive into a hive as adults. An adult female flies into the hive and begins to lay eggs. The bees are literally out of your hair when they are placed on the roof.

Wintergreen oil is the most commonly used oil against small 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. 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.

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. I was amazed at around 200 dead or dying beetles. Take care when installing and removing you do not want to spill oil in the hive. The wintergreen oil kills the small hive beetles and makes them leave the beehive.

There are 3 compartments and 2 of them have a small slit in the top. 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. The beetles will be drawn to the shortening and honey and killed by the wintergreen oil. Nitidulidae sap beetles.

Otherwise the colony would have stopped that adult female from flying in in the first place. The beetles were collected from a weak honey bee colony in charleston county. This video shows me breaking open a test hive which was using swiffer sheets to control small hive beetles. Fill the 2 larger compartments about 1 3 1 2 full of mineral oil vegetable oil or beetle oil.