My small hive beetle infestation

[Maryly Snow]

First we noticed several (only 3 or 4 it seemed) small hive beetles (SHB).

A few weeks later we noticed the slimy nature of the frames. So I washed them

off away from the hives, and let them dry out. Alas, the hive absconded.

But cleaning up the frames today I noticed a different species of beetle: longer and thinner than SHB, light tan with darker stripes that ran around their body. These were super fast, running to dive into empty cells or to the ground. 

What do you think these were?

Maryly Snow

[Gerald Przybylski]

Hmmm

Australian sap beetles are about as long as SHB, but only a third as wide.
They chow down on pollen in cells, but are otherwise pretty benign.
"not a significant agricultural impact"
We recently had a speaker who covered the topic.

If they are longer than SHB, they're something else.
They may be of interest to the state apiculturist.  Or she may know what they are.

[Maryly Snow]

I had “sap beetle” confirmed earlier today. 

I confess to finding them quite interesting.

A couple of days ago I was sitting on an outside step cleaning off deep frames of wax and propolis before spraying with BT to cut down on my earlier small hive beetle infestation.

I found the longer, skinnier striped beetles quite “fun” to watch. They ran away from me so fast, diving and jumping into empty hive cells to hide, or disappearing in a flash into gravel on the ground that I found them “cute” and/or “funny."

Maryly

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