During a survey of apiaries in the south of Western Siberia, located in the Tyumen, Isetsky, Nizhnetavdinsky, Yarkovsky, Yalutorovsky, Zavodoukovsky, Yurginsky districts of the Tyumen region and the Tugulymsky district of the Sverdlovsk region, which we conducted in 1995-1998, 22 species of beetles were found in honey bee hives. These species include Dermestes lardarius L. (family Dermestidae).
In apiaries located within a radius of 200-300 km from the city of Tyumen, the following species are widespread and the most harmful: Dermestes lardarius L. (ham skin beetle), Ptinus fur L. (pretend beetle), Tenebrio molitor L. (large mealworm beetle), Tribolium madens Charp. (small dark mealworm beetle), Cryptophagus scanicus L. (mold beetle, secretive beetle).
The most important component of bee damage is the transmission of bee pathogens by beetles. We determined that a single beetle, D. lardarius, can carry approximately 285,000 spores of the fungus Ascosphaera apis, the causative agent of bee ascosphaerosis. The presence of at least 30 adult D. lardarius beetles in a bee nest, which have been in contact with larvae killed by ascosphaera, statistically significantly leads to the development of this disease. This number of beetles in a single hive should be considered the threshold for their harmfulness.
A new method for controlling beetles is the use of traps of our own design, which are placed inside the hive. They consist of a stack of two 5 x 10 cm plywood boards, separated by two matches, glued to one side of the plywood with bone glue. A groove is cut into the bottom plywood board, into which an elastic band fits flush with the outer surface, holding both plywood boards together. Stacked on top of each other and held together by the elastic band, the plywood boards form a gap equal to the thickness of a match (2.0 ± 0.3 mm). This space is sufficient for the passage of most species of beetles, but is inaccessible to bees. This makes it possible to place bait between the plywood boards in combination with contact poisons and entomological glue. It turned out that the traps caught beetles, including D. lardarius.
The doses of Ambush Insecticide causing a lethal effect in 0, 50, and 100% of the test insects were determined. For the species D. lardarius, the doses were 0.7, 0.9, and 1.2 g/m², respectively (the concentration of the working solutions according to the preparation was 0.34, 0.44, and 0.58%).