The annual Alabama Cooperative Extension Service’s annual Beekeeping Symposium marks the beginning of the beekeeping year (at least for me).  This year’s event was held on February 3 and drew about 650 people from all over the state (and some from Georgia and Florida too). Dr. Jim Tew (some of the older Maryland beekeepers may remember him) coordinated the event.  As always, we had a number of excellent speakers and all the popular vendors were there too.

Most of the conferences I go to have at least one standout talk, and this year my standout talk was on small hive beetles given by Audrey Sheridan of Mississippi State University.  Small hive beetles are the Rodney Dangerfields of beekeeping research; while plenty of money is available for researching Varroa mites, getting grants for small hive beetle research is tough.  This is sad, for I find small hive beetles to be my bigger problem.  With Varroa, as long as you keep an eye on the numbers and treat when needed you will stay out of trouble.  With small hive beetles, a colony can go from no problem to destroyed in a week.

Small hive beetles are members of a family of fruit-eating beetles, and, as such, they can live on fruit (especially cantaloupe), but they much prefer to live in bee colonies.  Bee alarm pheromone will attract beetles. The beetles can fly up to 10 miles looking for a place to live. They can overwinter in bee clusters, and they can vector American Foulbrood and Nosema.

The adult beetles cannot be removed by the bees, and the beetles can get the bees to feed them.  The beetles in a hive spend much of their time hiding in empty comb cells and similar confined spaces.

The beetles lay their eggs in empty comb cells.  Beetle eggs look like bee eggs, but they will be in clusters.  The beetle larvae hatch after 3 days and eat bee brood, honey and pollen.  They especially love pollen patties. As the larvae feed they spread a fungus that spoils honey.  The colony bees get overwhelmed by the sheer number of larvae, abscond, and leave the beekeeper to clean up the mess.

Audrey’s interest is to find the trigger mechanism that makes all the hive beetle larvae hatch at once and so overwhelm a colony.  She hasn’t found the trigger mechanism yet, so in the interim, we will have to continue trapping adult beetles as best we can. A number of beetle traps are on the market; the recommendation is to use one that can be serviced with minimal disturbance of the hive.  Disturbing the hive makes the bees release an alarm pheromone, which in turn attracts more beetles.

While Audrey likes Beetle Blaster traps, there are many others that will work.  Again, the important thing is that they be serviceable with minimal hive disturbance.

As for the beetle killing agent in the hive, all have their advantages and problems.  Using a hive bottom trap with a liquid agent requires careful hive leveling. Solid killing agents like diatomaceous earth set up like cement in high humidity areas.  Cooking oil (what I personally use) is cheap but can degrade trap material. Soapy water evaporates. Audrey personally likes propylene glycol (available at feed stores), but it is expensive.  Bottom line: no perfect beetle killing agent exists.

So, no breakthrough solution to the small hive beetle problem yet, but at least beetles have come onto the research radar. In the meantime, keep your beetle traps on, keep your colonies strong (many bees/frame) and extract honey supers ASAP after pulling.

The symposium also has a beginner’s track, and I sat in on the Life Cycle of the Honeybee talk delivered by local beekeeper Danielle Dowell.  I teach the Wiregrass Beekeepers Association’s Beginning beekeeping course, and I was interested in how she covered one of the topics I include in my course.  Danielle made use of what she called “Bee Math”, and I will leave you with an example:

You observe a colony is queenless, but it does have sealed queen cells.  You elect to let the bees requeen themselves. How long until you see a) eggs, and b) new adult bees from the new queen?

The answer will be in next month’s Letter from the South.

-Bill Miller