 Thank you. Welcome to the Farmers Forum sessions for Saturday. I'm Patrick Byers, Regional Horticulture Specialist with the University of Missouri Extension. This is being taped. That's why we're doing this over again. And I want to welcome you to the sessions. Our first speaker is John Neninger and he will be talking about small hive beetle control in beehives. And John, if you would please speak into the microphone, we're being taped. And later on when we have question and answers, the microphone here would be very helpful if anyone who has a question comes up and uses that mic as far as any questions. So with that, let's welcome John. Thank you very much. I'm going to remove this thing since I like to walk around and talk. My name is John Neninger, of course, and I got this grant from Sarah. And if you have any questions, concerns, or comments, you can email them to that email address. That's not mine. The other two email addresses are for people who if you want to get more information about the Sarah program, how you can come up with an idea, grants, and it's a good source of information. Okay. Quickly, we're going to just cover the history of small hive beetles, some of its weaknesses. My original test proposed in 2011, which has changed slightly. Yeah, test results from 2011. We're going to go over some of the cost related to that, how you can actually put your budget together. But that budget will change, hopefully for the better. Then we came up with this question at the end of last year, could we control and or eliminate small hive beetle by nonchemical processes? And in thinking of that, we were kind of like taking that bigger leap into the unknown. Then we ended up, how can we re verify or really test that our method was really a valid test? So that came up with 2012 tests. That's why it kind of lasted two years. Then we said, what is the weaknesses in our own program? And what are some of the upcoming products that were upcoming in the industry? Quickly, they came from Africa 1998, 14 years ago. They laid three to seven eggs in a mass in cracks and crevices. And of course, they can lay from 100,000 masses in their lifetime. There are life cycles of six months. So that means if you do the math roughly, that's 300 to 7,000 eggs that she can lay. That's a worst case scenario. There has been hives I've seen that are pretty close to this number. Okay, eggs hatched, these are now showing tell pictures. How do you go back on this thing? Thank you. So if you, the egg will hatch in two to four days. And there's a picture of the egg. This is from the University of Florida. And that's what he looked like after they hatched. This is actually a picture I took on a piece of white paper on my kitchen counter. That blue line is actually a blue line off of your like the normal writing pad. They like to feed on pollen and brew and honey. One thing I noticed that when I was trying to keep these things alive in my jar, I actually dropped some honey on top of the larvae and it drowned. It actually dies in the honey. So if it gets actually smothered by honey, it will drown. They fully develop in 10 to 16 days. And that's what they look like fully developed. Again, this is a picture I took on my kitchen counter. And I did have permission from my wife and anybody wanted to know that. They need to pupate in soil. That's something that we need to concentrate on. And they'll take them 10 to 15 days to look like that. That's a picture I think another mother can only like. I don't know what those little pins are for. I think it's probably to keep other things from eating them as they're developing. In their full life cycle, that's what they look like once they've fully matured. Their wings are underneath this armor plating in the back there. And when they fly, they almost look like they call those little bugs, lady bugs. The wings are almost the same way. That's what they look like underneath. And it's really, you can see the hair. They look like they have a bunch of little hair around the outskirts of their body. This is a picture I took and I was interested in their feet. You can see that little claw thing and their little fuzzy feet. Again, you might be able to pick out this hair that seems to be, you can only pick it up around on the edges, but it's actually the entire, their entire body is covered on it. These feet are almost like feet of a bee. The bee will also have two kind of feet, you know, little claws and little pads. They start laying eggs about seven days after they emerge, so they don't stay virgins long. They can have up to five generations per year. So think about that first bee, that first small, high beetle. She lays three to seven, then the next generation three to seven and so forth and so on. In no time, you can have a lot of small, high beetles. And of course, they can lay up to like 50 to 500 laying females in the 67 days. That's a lot of laying eggs. And again, that's a worst case scenario. Some of the weaknesses, get to know your enemy. That's what I decided when I went out and looked in my small, high beetle. What is their weaknesses? Get to know the enemy. What is he or she not like? Well, humidity below 50%, temperature below 50. Last week, I went to one of my test locations and it was like 40 degrees outside. I went out there to take a look at his hives and he had about 20 to 25 small, high beetles on the outside of his hive. And he just told me earlier that morning, he went in there to open up his hive and he was taking out some honey. So he had these small, high beetles just laying around and he said they were dead. I said, no, give me a jar. So he got me a little fruit jar, maybe three inches. I just scooped them up into the jar and put them on a car and within two minutes they were up and flying. I still have them at home and I actually have a picture of them. I was testing something new with them on there. So just because they look like they're dead and it's 40 degrees out, they're probably just hibernating. They're attracted to fluorescent lights. I tried something in my house. I have three hives at the front door. The UPS driver says he's there at my front door. I really don't think they are. But they, they, I wanted to see if it really worked. So I went out and got a fluorescent light thing and I put it out there and I couldn't really tell, you know, if they were doing it or not. Pheromones of beehives. I would love to get to do that stuff. Pheromone of adult bees. Banana oil, cantaloupes and native fruits. Pear is another one. My first small high beetle was not in my beehive. It was on a retaining wall next to my garden where my cantaloupe were at. So they are out there. They will live, if they can't find that hive, they probably migrate to gardens and soft, what I call soft fruit. A weakness lay eggs and cracks and crevices. A weakness is because that's where they want to go. What if we prevented that location? Maybe they won't be able to lay eggs. Then, of course, the soil. They have to have that right kind of soil mix and that was the key of my grant. How can we hold or contain or kill them, the larvae? 2011, the test proposal was that I was going to buy these bees, five different varieties and I did. I got five packages of each of these bees and at three locations. One was my own backyard. Another one was a crest farm and another location was what we call Dave's farm, 40 acres. The Dave's farm never had bees on it. Mine was out in the middle of the woods and the crest farm had bees on their land about five years earlier, but they left. We were also going to start testing some of the stuff that the University of Florida came up with. This is a nice little tube. It doesn't take that long to make. Just take a little PVC, cut it down to a foot in length, number eight wire mesh and then you put in a tractor on the inside. That was our direction we were going to go in. Also out there in the market or ideas on the websites, you got these plastic containers. You drill little holes, put a little pheromone or some kind of a tractor in the middle, sitting in a floating in or submerged in or some way surrounded by some kind of oil. So as the beetles would go into these little holes, they'd actually fall into the oil and drown. And then also the good old fashioned corrugated plastic strips. See how can we get those beetles to go in there and get stuck or get attracted to it. If they can go in here and let's say they use that to lay the eggs, how much time do we have from the moment we put this in to the moment we take it out that we're actually keeping the eggs from hatching. That was the premise we were going to look into. Then of course the good old fashioned screen bottom board with beetle traps. Trapping agents of course we're going to start looking at bunch of jellies, different grease, vegetable oils and glues trying to keep it all natural without having to go into any kind of chemical. But the main part of the presentation or the test was this what we call this box stand. And it was the hive was going to be suspended over this rocky kind of a faulty solution. And it was going to be placed on 30 pound felt paper. And it was going to be filled up with P rock and salt. Because if we knew that the larvae has to get into that ground, we're going to try to get a barrier between it and the ground and put it into an environment that will kill the larvae. So this is a little test box in front of my house. This is a two by six here. Here's the felt paper. Here's a little P rock we were using. Then we just put a bunch of salt on top. So and that was the the start of the test. Now with the with the when we decided to start testing last year. As you see here, I was not a happy camper when these bees arrived and the supplier, I got the four of the species from one supplier and one another from another supplier. And as you imagine, you know, paying 120 bucks for these, I was not a happy person. So right now I have no carnolions left with whoever. And it did save me time out in the field. It was less beehives you had to take care of. But that was not what I wanted to do. The Minnesota hygienics, what actually happened here, we put off four packages together in one location. And within within days, they started to migrate back to one hive, which gave me the impression that this person just took a Minnesota hygienic or group of bees from a hive and put a big packages and then they all started to say, Hey, my sisters are over there. I'm going to go over there and live. So I did have two hives still left. They're still doing pretty strong. And there are some beetles in there. We'll go into beetle counting a little while. The buck fast. Same thing happened again. You know, some of these species people get and they call it a buck fast is really maybe a hybrid not really the true buck fast. So hives never really did did well. The it was and of course they did not survive that winter. And they did have a low beetle count. The Russians again, I got this from a different supplier. And one hive died out really early. The other hive I have no clue why it left. It was totally empty. Then one hive had less than a frame and a half of bees and then two hives are doing well. And they all have low beetle count. But by September, I couldn't find any. And that's probably because the Russians are a little bit more aggressive. In one hive, one nuke I was having this year, I opened it up and I noticed that all the bees were clustered in a far corner. And this particular nuke has a double screen in it. And I opened up and I looked inside and all these bees were in this corner, trying to get to about 10 to 12 small high beetles that were caught in between the two screens. So they were definitely showing a trait that they wanted to get to those beetles and get rid of them. So the small thing of bad thing about this is that it was just a nuke that started from a swarm. And they didn't really have a high bee count. So they didn't really make it. But I would have loved to have had that queen producing more because that could have had a characteristic trait that we were looking for. If they're showing aggressiveness towards that beetle, they've been great, but it never panned out. As far as the locations, Dave locations, the one Russian hive had beels first. And I think this was because they were doing so well. I noticed that when I took off the reducer, it left a larger opening. That's something we're gonna discuss a little bit more in detail. And then also I found out later, that there was hives that were within about two mile radius range, where they had over 200 hive beetles in their hives. So I was asked, how far did they fly? I don't know. Could this be an indication? Maybe, maybe not. But if they go from garden to garden, it's hard to tell. Can they fly once they get in the wind? Does it push them somewhere? How can you really come up with a test that isn't closely responsible? If you guys don't have small high beetles and I come to your location, I mark them with a little dye, set them out, and then you guys report back to me, you got small high beetles. I don't think that would be a good little test. You know, it's like spreading the disease around. So I don't know how you can really test it. Crest farm locations, the middle of the hygienic was doing good. But then there were hives there two years previously that had problems. And I think what happened that the small high beetles that left the hive ended up going into the local gardens. They had like a vegetable garden that they would have. The Russians always had a low count. And, and, and again, I think that's because they were a little bit more aggressive bee. Trapping agents. Okay, we decided to, you know, see what's trapping agents did the best. We did this. This is a picture of a small high beetle on glue on my kitchen counter. And you can see how his feet is kind of sticking to the glue. And he would get stuck on the ankles and the tip of his, his claws. But everybody's seen those fly traps that you pull out. And they're real sticky. And you really get them on your hands. You almost have to use turpentine or stuff to get your fingers off. I said, that's what's gonna slow these babies down. I laid that on the counter, put a small high beetle on it. He walked across that like he was crossing a four lane highway. He didn't even really slow him down. So that then I decided I need to test more. And again, here's that that beetle he's as he walks, he kind of like picks up his feet and kind of like jerks it off and sets it down just like we would walk if we're in mud up to her ankles or knees, we kind of like jerk and get stuck and we keep moving. Some of the traps slowed them down. But none of them actually have stopped them yet. Totally. Oops. So also tested, you know, we took bunch of these little containers like this. And we filled them up with water and saline solution on oil. How long does it take a beetle to drown? Well, anywhere from one to 10 minutes. And I noticed that the difference in time was really more like might have been related to temperature because we did it in the spring. And they took a longer time to drown. When we did it in the fall, it was within minutes. It was almost like you put a person who doesn't know how to swim in the water. And at first, they might be relaxed. But then they could start to get real panicky. And you can see him squibb and then eventually just drown because it's actually suffocating them. Then and I think it's like it said, it was probably just because of the temperature difference between the water we were testing in the spring and the water and the temperature outside in the fall. The sandwich containers and the corrugated plastics, we decided to postpone until we came up with some kind of glue that we're looking for. And of course, we use a screen bottom board and with oil and that that does really work. Okay, quickly, something I need to cover is this. When you have a budget for a SAIR grant, you have to keep track of that money. They like to know what you're spending it on. So and the original proposal, I was going to use galvanized pipe because that's what I used in my first two hives. But then I went to replace it by four by four lumber. So I saved them $1,126 and I hope that made them happy. So overall, like in this one case down here, where corrugated plastic, I was going to buy the sheets. I went to a sign manufacturer told him what I wanted to do. And he said, Hey, here's my junk pile. And he just gave me all I wanted. So I got that for free. Then, then little things like I had the roofing paper, I already had that on hand. So I didn't have to buy that. And the tub of grease, the local farm store was having to sell on grease. So I got a bucket of that and saved it. So you can come up with the original budget, but then you can actually save save SAIR that money and you don't have to spend it all. So basically that was the end of the 2011 testing thing. We came up to when we actually at the very end, we I always use the word we, I in the Beatles, I put them in this fault solution. I needed to see, is it really blocking the larvae from developing? Are they still able to get through? So I had a cordon off and I put maybe two dozen, three dozen larvae on there. And I said, Okay, let's watch you die. I couldn't really see that, but I was able to dig through and find five dead cartnages, which not is a good result. So I said, Okay, we're going to step back. How can I come up with a test that I can for sure determine if the larvae is getting through it or not? So I look at that my little B stand, my test box, I said, Okay, what we're going to do is we want to elevate it. I'm going to elevate that up over some tin pan. And I'm going to put this wire mesh in so the rock doesn't fall through, but it will still small enough to large enough to let the beetles get through. So that's where I left off in 2011. And as a beekeeper, you can't really do much in January and February and March. So and even if I try to find beetles, I couldn't been able to find them. It wouldn't be in a valid test because they're not only not out there in the wintertime. So that that was pretty at the end of 2011. I was kind of discouraged, but also found some new ways to go down a new path. That's why I called path to discovery. Once you ended up going one direction, you say, Well, I think I'm going to go this way now. How can I prove it or disprove my theory? So I said, I'm going to start off with some new bees, and I'm going to medicate them and polish your test to see if there's any pests or diseases coming along with them. And I'm going to keep them in the box inside the hive three to five days, just for the medication purposes. And I ask for volunteers in my local bee club would they like to be test sites? All they had to do was let me come in with my little bee stand, put it up. I'll stay out of the way. I will never visit you again until the end of the year. You keep track of the information for me. I didn't want to have any bias directly or indirectly on their observations. And we also said I'm going to go out and test new glue products. So when I went out to a lot of, come on glue, when I went out shopping all winter long and I'd go to Chicago or Kansas City or wherever I was at visiting people, I'd go to their section they had glue. And like for example this flea trap I got from Chicago. That flea trap, you can't, I never found it in St. Louis. I also got on the web and the website said you had these little traps that is inhumane to mice. And I said well they hold a mouse maybe they will hold a small hive beetle. Well that's not true because in the process of trying to test some of these glue products it's almost like they were late like a water bug. It doesn't break that last elasticity of that glue surface. So they were walking across some of this stuff like you know it was a day in the park. You know they had, it was nothing was slowing them down. And of course we asked that question can we control or eliminate small hives by non-chemical processes in 2012? Because I said I didn't do it in 2011 will I be able to do it now? And that I have to say was a good year. My son also got married that year too. But I started off where I left off at and again started off with that hive. It was elevated off the ground. Fills it up well got it back up. Fills it up with P rock, coordinate off. And I said okay now I have to go out and get some small hive beetles. I went out to my weakest hive. I put in some pollen patty. I waited for a couple of weeks and I got all the small hive beetles I wanted. I could put these little beetles in a container like this. Went out and on my first test I put about 75, 75 of these small hive beetles in this rocky surface in the different coordinates. Within about 15 minutes as I was sitting there there's my little chair I would sit out there my little timer and it got boring after a while but within 15 minutes you could sit there you can actually hear I was sitting there and I was reading the book and I heard this bing look down and there's a there's a larvae on the ground and I go shoot. Then a little while later bing then I noticed that they were falling out around the perimeter of the wood right along the edges and when I would pick them up and put them back in the middle they wouldn't do it so then for the next two hours I was out there and it went by kind of fast first two hours and none of them made it through and then I went inside 10 minute break came back out for another 45 minutes nothing looking to trade there was nothing and so I was pretty confident by that point none of them after that point were making it through the rock so then I said okay let's do it with the salt did it with the salt these little larvae as soon as they get there they're trying to find a way to get into the ground these little critters couldn't do that so I again I started off like 73 of them they ended up getting out about four of them got out because they would go across the rocky salt go to the edge of the board climb up the board over the board and then down onto the on to the tin pan and they did move kind of fast so I just picked them up and once I put them in the middle and once they found that first spot that they think they can get down they kept on going down then I remembered when you could watch the larvae of a wax moth and a hive they can go backwards and forward these little critters can only go forward so that kind of gave a little thing in my head I and I said can adult beetles go forward and backwards so I kept that in my head for a while for something I wanted to test so I said okay I said what do I know about I know as soon as they get in the dirt they want to go down how can I make these creatures go down so I ended up putting some dirt on top of that salt I put the larvae I started off with 80 of them put them on you know about 10 or 12 in each section and I had my camera off to the side I sprinkled them down and with a spoon counted them as I went picked up my camera to take a picture they were already gone they were already in that soil so I just said I need to look at that a little closer so that's when I decided to go in my house and I had these little containers and I said what I'm going to do is put in these containers like in this one was this dirt on the left and the one on the right was the sand I wanted to see how can they do with sand in sand they can't get through sand the granules of sand or tooth compact so you can see on the bottom here like these these beetles there's three of them in here and one up up here they kept on going in circles around and around and about seven days five to seven days they both died here in the dirt put them in the dirt it was like they were gone they were in the dirt so then I decided what if I just took the dirt and salt I want to see what happens here so what happened is that they went to the dirt and let's see I got to take my glasses off for this yes you can still see right as they entered into the salt so you can pass this round later that the small high beetle as soon as you got through the dirt got into the salt and he couldn't go any further and he actually died right there in the salt so I said okay I think I'm kind of happy with this result because none of them made it through zero all 80 never made it through the company couldn't even make it through and that's what I was looking for I wanted a way that says that this will totally stop them they will not do it so somebody was asking me how fast they traveled so something I did last year by accident I spilled a jar full of small high beals adults and larvae onto the top of a oil drum 55 gallon drum and within seconds they died it was about 95 degrees outside barrel was hot to the touch almost like to your car so I got one of those little temperature things you kind of shoot at the temperature thing and you wanted to see the surface at a temperature of the stuff and of course as soon as you get it it's a new toy so I went out my check trees cars side of my house found out the trees are actually quite consistent they were like 82 degrees with the sun even hitting on the side and I said well I wonder what they're on the dark side but I never did it you know I had to get back to stop playing so I I did this I kept testing and I started early in the morning it was about 75 degrees outside surface temperature was pretty cool about 76 on the 8th sun wasn't really up that high in the sky yet but I'm going to ask a question and maybe only one person I know this answer but how long does it take a small high beetle to travel 12 inches person who gets closer I'll put his name in a hat for maybe a drawing for a car so how long do you think it would take three minutes how did you know that you guess it just took under three minutes like on the average I did this with five of them it was like 2.2 minutes and 50 some odd seconds 52 seconds and so people were saying well you put a small idea on concrete he will go for miles until he will find a suitable soil providing he doesn't die on the way okay well when they started to die I was trying to get temperatures when I did the number six and number seven test that's when they started to die they started to die roughly about 125 to 158 degrees but I think the reason why I was getting that differences is like in this picture the concrete is pitted you know you don't really it's not we think it's really smooth but it's really not so I was trying to get that temperature and it will vary within you know I guess quarter of an inch or sixteenth of an inch the temperature is just on the concrete with this very but once you got up to that temperature this little critter would die now I'm an adult he would fly off and go somewhere else so if the next time you're on a game show and they ask you how long it takes a small high beetle to travel you will have that answer and it's been proven okay so that led me to something else I wanted to know if I took a small high beetle could I make him walk as he could walk backwards so I decided out I need a straw so I would decide I'm going to go out and get a straw I went out to bunch of these gift shops and they were just too big so I went into a target walking down an aisle and I found these fruit drinks and I saw the straw and I said that's what I want that's it so whenever you're out your brain is always thinking about how you can do things the science brain so I took that straw and I taped them together and I got this beetle you know took one out of the container and actually got him in there and he actually walked the entire length of that straw and I'm going good I like this so far what is he going to do when he hits my finger I had my finger in the way he came up and he kind of just bumped my finger and he started walking backwards and I go I didn't want you to do that but when he walked backwards he was almost like walking with a moonwalk because his joints are not made that same to he's kind of like doing a little Michael Jackson on the reverse and so I said huh that could still be beneficial if I didn't get that glue in these small containers and get him to go forward and he's his mind is to go forward for some reason he's going to get further into the straw sure he's going to get over the glue but then can he back out as well as he got in one thing I did with a small high beetle I wanted to see if I got the glue on his back what would happen I took a beetle I put it on the glue that flea trap glue that's the best one that we found that worked and that beetle would lay there like a turtle just trying to flip itself over eventually he took its one leg hit the glue flipped itself over got up and started to walk off and I said huh okay I grabbed that beetle put it back well I want to see again how long does it take if it takes a certain amount of time that could be beneficial I put that beetle back on its back first time it took like five to seven minutes before they flip themselves over this it took about maybe 30 seconds took that leg flipped it over walked right off I said huh does this beetle learn can he really learn so I said I'm going to do it again as soon as I flipped that beetle on its back it took its leg flipped it on the glue started walking off and I go ah I should have kept going because now this is be the does the beetle really learn have learned for transfer meaning that could I take that beetle I should have maybe tried it clipped off that leg put them on its back again and say now the beetle says well I don't have a leg there now I have one on my other side I'll flip that and get going then we could say the beetle has an ability to learn okay but we didn't do that study you know I was it wouldn't might have been fun so what I ended up doing is I took I wanted to find out okay if these critters like to go in these cracks and crevices what's making them go up it so I have like a banana oil in one of them on the upper left I have bananas pear and pollen patties in this one I then decided I would I put them in this container to see how they would work and these are actually be like this recently got from a the guy that said they were all dead from being cold this is the guy that I got the beetles from this is one of the test sites as you see he started off with small counts but in June well in July his beetle count really got a pie this is the guy that had the hives within two miles of where I had my first my first test hives he bought these hives from another beekeeper this is a second year beekeeping first full year and when I went back to visit him this year to pick up the report he told me two of his hives died from wax moths and and he didn't know what to do with him so he just put the the dead out the dead out hives in the apiary and let all the LB's you know go to those hives and you know clean out the hives for him I said well that's not the way you want to do it if you have diseases in your hive so talk to him about it what he was doing right in June and July he was harvesting honey right at that time he has the old-fashioned beehives where they just had the the boards on the bottom he originally had these hives sitting on really nice farmland really loose soil something that small high beetles were like next year I would like to see these numbers come down so next year although this study is over with we're still going to go out there I'm going to see if if his numbers have decreased the other test site this is Debbie and Sandy's test site they had started off with two hives they decided to split and make two hives requeen them in April the the new hives they were probably the weakest hive and they got some beetles and then the other hives the strong in the testy hive didn't have any and you can see that their counts were always low and in June July August September October being housewives they decided they had enough of that to do and they had honey the only problem is that they had honey all summer and they are again new beekeepers and they did not know they did not need to feed the bees all summer long because their honey was really light in color and people thought that was kind of strange and it was because the honey they was eating was from the sugar water they've been feeding them all summer so I don't know if that had anything to do with the beetles or not but that's what they were doing so now they won't do it next year weakness what is weakness about this whole system well you still got the larvae the larvae is still coming in your hive the larvae is still eating your your hive your pupa the eating the wax they're eating the pollen they're destroying your hive then they go into the ground you still got adults you got adult bees coming in adult the larvae adult the small ideal coming in from different people you know how can we control that and of course if you have if you you have 30,000 hives and you're going to be transporting them you don't want to carry salt rock and dirt which everywhere you want to go all right and the beehive stand itself it's two feet high off the ground the fourth test site Bill he was an older gentleman and he did not like it it was too tall so and but he was also had this habit of that he always wants to keep stacking his supers to see how many supers he can get on I as soon as that super is ready to take off I take it off I don't want to see how many how high go he did say the hives that were over this bee stand had a lot less be be high beetles he he's really couldn't say how many you counted but he couldn't really see him when he opened up is that is other hives he had off to the side that were virtually on the ground on cinder blocks he would open them up and he could actually see that the high beetles run around maybe it had something to do with it maybe not I don't know we were not trying to test so could I make a guarantee I people say you shouldn't make a guarantee but I'm going to I'm going to go out on the limb say yes I can guarantee that you can kill every larvae in your that falls out of your hive into this little beetle box we just call it if you took right along if this was a piece of plywood pressure treated plywood 2 by 6 line that with roughing paper put a rock salt mixture inside here with a little layer of dirt across the top making sure this hive is within the boundaries of that location so when those when those little larvae fall out late at night when it's cool out they're not going to do this at 10 o'clock in the morning okay so when they drop out they will come down and as soon as they hit that dirt they're going to start to go straight down now if you need to have this dirt on here and let's say that was rock salt right there I'd be afraid that that beetle larvae would hit that crawl get up over and then get out but by having that dirt in there it's it they have that instinct as soon as they hit that dirt they're going down and they would just keep on down into that rock salt solution eventually when it rains that's going to get like a salty ocean for them and they won't get in so you just build this maybe maybe you don't have to go two feet maybe you can go 12 inches when I go two feet 24 inches I don't have a problem with raccoons mice or any of those other credits also right along the legs here we ended up putting a tango foot glue on to try to keep roaches and ants out and last year before putting that on I would have a half a dozen roaches in each box this year out of 20 hives I've only found one roach out of 20 hives no ants okay so maybe you know the ants would come across here come up here also die no maybe I don't know I didn't count ants I wasn't concerned about them so I I would probably have to say I would guarantee that if you build your high-body boxes over some kind of platform that would prevent that larvae from getting to the natural ground into this solution area down there every larvae is going to die how does that help well thinking about Einstein kind of thinking if you did not let any child ever develop to become an adult what will eventually happen to that society you would die off now problem with this too let's say that I do it my neighbor doesn't he still likes to raise small high beetles nothing you can do about it okay so that's why we said you know I went to the next level after that up and beyond and said what can I really do so here's a picture of my three hives in those boxes with the stands these these two by sixes here are keeping the hives sturdy on that platform you see a little queen cage here I requeen I was going to talk about the reducer the hives that were doing the best we took the reducer off when we took that reducer off we found small high beetles in that hive before we found in the hive that did not have the reducer off in my one minute so hygienic covered in front with hives but at night time you know maybe they're taking too much for break maybe they're letting those little cracks and crevices come in I also started to duct tape around the openings where the hive body boxes didn't really fit close together that might have helped reduce some of the roots problem too maybe maybe not I don't know but those small high beetles if they can find a way in they're going to get in okay so if the if the bees are living in a tree they don't have that problem they're living in our artificial boxes we might just be adding to the problem by not really closing in the loft some upcoming products this is something I was trying to work on it's actually a trap and where you would have glue in all four surfaces and you eject some kind of pheromone in the middle this the beetle would then crawl into the pheromone and get stuck that's the premise that's what we're trying to work on a thing about this kind of trap you don't have to have it in your beehive you could probably stick it on the side of your trap you could probably stick it sticking on a tree next to your hive just like all these other pheromone traps they have out in the industry I gotta see if I can stretch that leg out oh I was down long oh gotta get back to the gym so in this you could actually go out there and stick it to the outside so you don't have to have the beetles get in your hive a lot of the traps that I've seen inside beetle inside the hive the sure they fall in they get attracted but what attract them to the hive in the first place is not that trap but the hive itself they're in there they get into your hive they're already laying eggs and they will eventually fall into a trap there's two gentlemen on the web talking about two products and they were somebody was talking back and forth on them and one said well my beetle hive my one beetle trap call caught 50 beetles years only caught five well maybe you only had five in that hive and you might have 2,000 in this hive you know no you know the numbers where are the numbers you know I like to see the numbers so then the other thing is some something I'm trying to get manufactured this year is called up a pollen feeder and this came from my idea okay if I want small high beetles I guess I can get a pollen patty and put it in and get the beetles this one actually dry pollen and you set it on the outside of your hive and the bees will go into it's almost like a boardman feeder then the University of Florida has this patent they actually patented yet last year it sits on the bottom of your hive almost at the same spot where your bottom board would fit and or your your screen bottom board and the it gets the piece on the bottom gets inverted sits on top and they put some pheromones in it and then you start stacking your high bodies up again this is the premise that they the beetles will go down through your hive go down get caught and get killed in here I haven't seen it on the market anywhere but they got that patent University of Florida you do have problems with deer when you feed salt out there okay I really don't consider it a problem but these deer are still living around my house I saw them in my garden two days ago eating on something that I didn't care you know they were fine by this time of the year they can have whatever they want but I guess that's about it as far as I can remember probably if you ask me a question I would probably remember something I forgot so first question yes make sure I understand this lady eggs the eggs go back down into the ground and they hatch no the eggs laid the eggs are laid in the hive they are hatched in the hive they the larvae then goes around eating everything in the hive the larvae then falls down to the ground gets through the ground pupae has an adult and comes back out and within seven days supposed to start laying eggs no well you everybody I guess if you want you could do that people have put them in a tub of water you know one of those round circular kids tub and if that's the thing they think they want to do but you can yes because they can't through now I guess you as long as the beetles are falling in there the thing is I found that some beetles swim lasted anywhere from one to ten minutes now the thing is was that one to ten minutes span based on the temperature differences or the age of the larvae or the age of the beetle as it fell into the water like some of them fell into the water and within a minute they died some of them fell in the water and it wasn't until about ten minutes later that they actually drowned I don't know was it was there a little bit more positive buoyancy you know like when people go swimming people a little bit more buoyant than others but if that method works yes yes if it falls and walls water stays in the water and drowns you're doing the same thing yeah the only but you know put yourself on the other side of that and ask yourself questions about the water how long will the water be there could there be mosquito problems could it get could there be other problems how often in dry spells you have to put water in you know just like there's weaknesses and strengths in in this approach easy accessible ability but like I got 15 hives in a remote site so when you have like the the hives around my house I could it's easier to maintain than hives that are like a 10 to 15 minute drive away this method we wanted to come up with something that you know said well you leave it there you put it there you don't have to worry about it okay question come on do I know any jokes no I don't do I think and dance if I have to next person that asks a question will get a free hamburger alright are you running screen bottom boards yes that's thank you that's what I want to remember I they work if you do it correctly okay they will help control your bug problem put your hide make sure it's level put a little oil in it a little vegetable oil I leave it in there all year at the end of the year I go out pull them out clean them out put more in when I go out to my hives every every time I bring along a garbage bags so that whatever garbage I get from the hive I put it in a bag I take it home I treat it and then I get rid of it I try to keep that site as clean as possible those small box of those high bottom boards put the oil in larvae will fall down on that and kill it okay does it get all of them I don't think so because as they come down along the front or the back you might come out of it also I found out that in the back I have to duct tape the back where that that screen and that bottom board slides in because that opening is big enough that I have seen roaches and other insects get in there so they can get in there the small high beetle get in there so I just go out and get the duct tape now they're coming out with all those multi-colored duct tapes I guess you can really dress up your hives really fancy if you wanted to I personally stuck stick with the gray you know it's cheap and they don't know what the difference all right what do you want on that hamburger all right questions concerns comments recommendations who here have problems with small-eyed beetles who here are beekeepers what part of the country you from okay where's the that's north of here west do you have do you have any problems the other insects wax moths yeah we were looking into wax moths have come up with a trap that's what that one thing from University of Galveston Florida it's actually how to get wax moths but have you ever gone on to your hives at night with a flashlight to see how many wax moths you have on the outside try that you can actually go out there and you can see them trying to get into the hive at night you put the flashlight on them they were stare for a few seconds and then leave but you can do a pretty good count that way what part of the state of you from oh so you you had breakfast at home this morning okay what do you have for breakfast good any problem with any bugs insects wax moths when did you first notice you had wax moths what month early do you have a lot of them or what do you do once you see them what are you doing still trying to figure it out yeah what I ended up doing when I found them I actually want to take a three minutes when I ended up I actually would take them and I was trying to raise them and I was raising wax moths again in my kitchen with my wife's permission she said as long as I clean up and be accountable for every insect she doesn't care so I started to notice that some of the studies they did with wax moths is that they had this pheromone trap they put in at the end of this like greenhouse and they were hoping to capture these wax moths to attract them and it didn't wasn't promising they out of a hundred they released they caught like three or four but the key is the wax moth will come out at night mate and they make this clicking noise at the same time they give out the pheromone so what I wanted to do this year was actually I'm saving all my queen boxes cages and I'm gonna take the wax moth the male wax moth and put them in this queen cage and then I'm going to take that queen cage and stick it inside that Galveston pipe make a bigger hole at the top and see if I can attract those wax moths that way to see if I can do something if I can do that and then line it with some kind of glue product then hopefully the wax moths will be attracted I had I have talked to a company in in Canada about this beetle trap and about the wax moths and they're trying to come up with a thing to do that too so they got the tens of thousands of dollars I only got like six or seven so it's going to be kind of hard for me to do anything how high off the ground do you have your hives 16 inches do you have any other problems with ants and stuff like that do you I used tangle foot the product glue and I just put around the base and that really stops them or slows them down you you might also might have to treat the ground yeah I hate using chemical but you might have to treat the ground around it to try to keep the ant population down another thing people have done they would find these ant holes and they would end up taking I think it's cornmeal or corn flour and they would sprinkle it around the the ant hole and the ants would take this take it down and try to feed it to their young and it would expand in their stomach and kill them so that seems to have to help another thing well that's it I'm done it's been nice talking to you people thanks for showing up on the early Saturday morning with the temperature in their what 40s it was cold bye bye