I know one is too many but

[J-grow]

How many hive beetles is cause for alarm?

I pulled a deep box today that was all capped honey with no brood in it and while I was pulling out the frames to extract I killed about 20 hive beetles.

The medium supers each had 2 or 3 beetles in them .........

Are those amounts tolerable or am I on the verge of a crisis?

The colonies seem very strong and healthy .......

Thanks

[Perry]

I have no experience dealing with these critters so can't help in that department. I've seen them for the first time when I visited Iddee, but there was never more than a few in the odd top feeder in one or two hives.

[lazy shooter]

I have never had a SHB crisis so I don't know if 20 is too many, but it does sound ominous to me.  Move your hive into full sun all day and use some kind of trapping  method.  Lborou uses some cloth traps sold by Bweaver.com with success.  Florida is a haven, maybe Heaven, for insects.  In my hot, low humidity environment in West Texas, I don't ever see a beetle.  That's fine with me.

lazy

I would advise taking some sort of remediation with 20 visible beetles.

[J-grow]

Thanks for the bweaver tip I am going to increase my trapping efforts

[Wandering Man]

My nucs came with a few SHB, so I've been trapping from day one.

Currently I've got a couple of those handi-wipe things in each hive, two beetle-blaster so with iOS, and a Freeman bottom board that I keep filled with either vegetable oil or soapy water.

I spread diatomaceous earth under and around the hives.

I found a few SHB in the handiwipes the first time, but nothing in the last couple of months. I see an occasional SHB in the beetleblasters. And continue to find one or two SHB in the bottom boards every week.

I think there pretty much under control with these measures in place. I rarely see one when I open the hive, but I don't expect to ever be totally rid of them.

[J-grow]

I am looking at the freeman and also the bottom boards that rossman apiaries sells with they Kelly beetle trap in it ....... They look like they could really help

[Lburou]

As long as your bee population is high enough to patrol for SHB and herd them into beetle jails and then remove their eggs and larvae before hatching in your honey, you will be okay. 

Since we are both hobbyists, we have time to kill every one we see.  If you take capped honey out of the hive, extract it within 24 hours and put it back on a hive for cleanup.  I let an extracted super sit in the shop for 36 hours this week and found wax moth larvae in the combs.  That is poor (lazy) management.

[Wandering Man]

Wow, that's fast.

My bees are on their own this weekend, Lburou. I'm in your neck of the plains (Grapevine) to visit my granddaughters and their parents.