Thursday, August 7, 2014

Ingenious solution to a deadly problem for beekeepers: Haynes Haselmaier and the Beetle Baffle(TM)





When Time Magazine put out an issue dealing with the modern plight of bees, one of the topics discussed was hive collapse due to beetles. The problem is international and intensifying as weather events provide favorable conditions for the little invaders in places that were less hospitable in the past. In south Mississippi, a beekeeper with an inventive mind has created a solution which is both creative in its approach and elegant in its simplicity.

For Haynes Haselmaier, the problem became personal. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he saw Mississippi hives suffer with incursions of small hive beetles (Aethina tumida). His own hives showed telltale signs. With a century of beekeeping experience in his family, Haselmaier didn’t want to give up on his hives. He tried many of the commercially available remedies at the time. As he points out, no three of the available methods combined kept him from losing hives.


Read more about this amazing invention here.