Hive beetles
Small hive beetles like this heat
Small hive beetles, Aethina tumida, thrive in Florida humidity. A messy, weak, or overheated colony loses that fight. UF already named the pest and the months. This page is a reading of those papers, not a trap catalog.
Florida humidity favors small hive beetles.
Months on the central band
The Florida calendar tells Central Florida keepers to watch small hive beetles in August, and again from October through December. August is also feed-if-light month. A light, hot box is beetle habitat. Ellis and Ellis, Small Hive Beetle is the species page. The beetle was confirmed in a Florida commercial yard in 1998. Unidentified specimens put it in the United States by 1996. Names of traps and rates stay on that page and on the label.
Adults hide in cracks. Bees station guards around those cracks. Beetles still eat. They rub a bee's mandibles until the bee regurgitates. A female may lay a thousand eggs, some papers say two thousand. Most hatch in three days if the air stays wet. Humidity under 50 percent with moving air kills eggs. Larvae prefer brood, then honey and pollen. After 10 to 16 days they leave the box at night and pupate in soil, most of them within 90 cm of the hive and shallower than 10 cm. Egg to adult can run four to six weeks in this climate. That is several generations in a Florida year.
Feeding larvae ferment honey. The species page says that honey is unfit to eat. Extract supers quickly. Do not leave wet cappings in the honey house. A thousand-plus adults in one colony can make the bees abscond. Weak, mite-loaded, or over-supered boxes lose first. Ellis names in-hive traps that use apple cider vinegar as an attractant and mineral oil as a drowning agent. Get this is one of those traps, not a brand pick. Heat and airflow are the other August job on this band. Get this is a screen, not a pesticide. This page does not pick a brand. Two labeled pesticides exist. Their names and rates stay on the species page and on the product label.
Same heat, two pests
Control options live on the species page and on labels. Varroa is a different pest on the same calendar. Sample mites on the Varroa page. Habitat work, forage, and water do not wait for a trap. Those jobs live on habitat. A strong spring flow does not cancel August. The calendar still watches beetles after nectar thins. Copy the Central Florida table, not a Michigan winter.
Does a strong spring flow prevent beetles?
No. The calendar still watches SHB in August, after the flow thins. A heavy spring hive can be a light August hive.
Can I copy a northern beetle calendar?
Keeping Bees in Florida says Florida humidity favors SHB year-round. Copy the Central Florida table, not a Michigan winter.
Sources
- Keeping Bees in Florida. Humidity favors small hive beetles.
- Florida Beekeeping Management Calendar. August and October to December SHB watch.
- Small hive beetle. Species page. Traps and rates stay there.