Small hive beetle in mainland Europe.

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The "Live Diseases" report http://tinyurl.com/manlhef dhows the Only Sept diease outbreak near me in Staffordshire is Kidsgrove.

That is 8 miles away...

I breath again.

As far as biosecurity is concerned, I'll flame treat my hands after each inspection.. (none scheduled till 2015)
 
Kidsgrove may simply be the nearest town so the diseased colony may be nearer to you than that.
 
Perhaps Italy has similar rules, and that is why rumour has it that SHB could of been there for up to a year already and spread far and wide, beekeepers keeping it to themselves, they would not be likely to destroy every hive of bees in Italy...or the whole of Europe.

I've read that infected apiaries in Italy have been destroyed (bees and hives) and the land they stand on ploughed up, sprayed etc.
They'd have problems with my carreg apiary (carreg means stone - the apiary is on a long disused quarry)
 
I've read that infected apiaries in Italy have been destroyed (bees and hives) and the land they stand on ploughed up, sprayed etc.
They'd have problems with my carreg apiary (carreg means stone - the apiary is on a long disused quarry)

Well ...there's a marketing opportunity if ever I heard one 'Stone Ground Honey' ... people pay well over the odds for stone ground flour so you could double your prices ...
 
Well, they can trap all the beetles they want, and de-populate all the hives they want, but the horse is already out of the barn. SHB will be in Italy now, no matter what they do.

A couple of questions -

Is any research going on to employ predator organisms to attack the SHB similar to how Certan works on wax moth?

How effective would positioning hives on large concreted areas be against the soil harboured stage of the pest?
 
SHB larvae will crawl several hundred meters to find soil suitable to dig down into for pupation.
I think there may be research ongoing into the use of nematodes to target SHB larvae - I haven't tried to look up anything on that yet though.

From a conversation I had at the weekend, I suspect that the Italian and EU authorities have moved beyond the "eradication" phase of their contingency plan and are looking at containment and control. Of course, we will have to wait for official confirmation that eradication is not possible. It is my understanding that 50% of the colonies inspected in Italy to date, have had SHB present.

PS - Michael, I understand that you will be visiting Northern Ireland in February to address the Institute of Northern Ireland Beekeepers: I look forward to meeting you then. I dare say you will be bombarded with questions about managing SHB in addition to questions on "The Sustainable Apiary".
 
Last edited:
The sooner it gets here the better, then we can get used to dealing with it, and stop worrying about when or how it will arrive.

Given the scale of international transfers and the source, I wonder if we might not look back on September 2014 with hindsight and realise it was already here. May G^d forbid, of course.
 
The small hive beetle outbreak in Italy appears to have become established and investigation suggest it is more widespread than initially believed and that attempts at containment are limited. The outbreak by 30/9/14 was reported to cover 60 square kilometres in five municipalities affecting 18 apiaries. As a flying insect the risk of spreading is greatly increased.

It is recognised that a high risk of spread exists because Calabrian beekeepers have traditionally carried out migratory beekeeping and supplying package bees.

Of 16 confirmed outbreaks (as of last week) five had larvae as well as adult beetles.
If not already now would be a good time to register with NBU beebase, think very carefully about imports, monitor hives, consider detection insert cards

For information on SHB - www.nationalbeeunit.com/downloadDocument.cfm?id=17

For reports from Italy - www.mieliditalia.it
 
The sooner it gets here the better, then we can get used to dealing with it, and stop worrying about when or how it will arrive.


Well Ebola is clearly coming. Apparently some Europeans have natural immunity. The suspense is killing me so the sooner it gets here, overwheelms the health services and we can sort out the survivors, the better. The panic will start this week I suppose.
 
think very carefully about imports,

?
Perhaps think about definitely not importing, encouraging your local association to put pressure on the national association to stop talking about fruit and soil and start making noise in government circles about an immediate ban on eu imports, writing to your mp and emp about the same, and discouraging other beekeepers from importing bees.
It's not with us yet(hopefully!), and with the right attitude and application we can keep it out for a long time to come. Never would be good.
 
As in think very carefully before importing might have been a better choice of words
 
The small hive beetle outbreak in Italy appears to have become established and investigation suggest it is more widespread than initially believed and that attempts at containment are limited.

Doesn't this sound familiar! Acarine came to America about 1987. First reaction was to depopulate colonies in regions where Acarine was found. Pity those poor folks who had their colonies killed before the regulators realized that the mite had already spread across the country.

And again, Varroa came to America shortly after Acarine arrived. Once again, eradication was attempted by depopulating hived in the effected area. Once again, the mite had already spread across the country, and any attempt at control was too late.

The next plague to arrive here will probably be Tropilaelaps, through the importation of package bees from Australia and New Zealand. The inspectors are already looking for it, and sample my colonies every summer. Once they find it it will already be too late.
 
Doesn't this sound familiar! Acarine came to America about 1987. First reaction was to depopulate colonies in regions where Acarine was found. Pity those poor folks who had their colonies killed before the regulators realized that the mite had already spread across the country.

And again, Varroa came to America shortly after Acarine arrived. Once again, eradication was attempted by depopulating hived in the effected area. Once again, the mite had already spread across the country, and any attempt at control was too late.

The next plague to arrive here will probably be Tropilaelaps, through the importation of package bees from Australia and New Zealand. The inspectors are already looking for it, and sample my colonies every summer. Once they find it it will already be too late.

It's what worries me is that my bees will be torched just because it arrives close by in an attempt to stop it. Now that it is in mainland Europe it will be interesting to see how fast it spreads throughout the rest of Europe and unfortunately it will only be a matter of time until we get them in the UK.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top