My third nuc in, one of my strongest and kept in a single deep with one shallow above, had 10 or so small hive beetles run up to greet me when I opened it up. I smashed each one, removed the super and pulled a center frame from the brood box. All was well as far as I could tell, and it didn't smell different than the first two nucs, which I'm keeping in stacks of three 5-frame deep nuc boxes. Sometimes when you inspect the beetles escape the propolis jails the bees had kept them trapped in, and that's part of what I experienced with this hive. It was the only one of my 6 hives to have SHB visibly greet me and in so many (for my apiary at least) numbers. I'll keep a close eye on this one when I inspect in a week.
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![]() Tom Davidson is the owner and beekeeper at T's Bees.
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