Does mint work against hive beetles?

Some beekeepers claim that you can deter hive beetles by putting mints in the hive, so we put this to the test. Cedar and Frewoini put mint candies into a hive, and came back to check the hive a week later.

Putting mints in the hive

Today we're doing myth-busting. Does the mint thing really work on hive beetles? So we've got these mints here, and apparently we can put them in the hive and it'll scare all the hive beetles away. So let's see, we've got Frewoinii here who's going to talk about the hive and put the mints in. Here are the mints we got sent. And we're going to just break them up into four quarters. Easiest way to do that is when it's in the bag so it doesn't go everywhere. So you can hit them with your hive tool and that will break it. And there we go. Perfect quarters just like that. So legend has it that we just need to put a quarter of one of these mints in the corner of the box, just here on top of the frames. And we might just for good measure, throw some right onto the bottom board as well.
Now there's an opportune moment here while we've got a little bit of space to drop some down inside between the frames there, there we go. That went right through to the bottom board and then it's just a case of opening up this little mint and putting them right in the corners like this. I assume the bees will like that little sweet candy treat, but let's see how long it lasts. It'll be interesting to open it up again next week and see if we've got any high beetles. I've only noticed a couple in here, so it's perhaps not the best hive to test, because there hasn't been a whole lot of beetles. So we might have to repeat this, but that's how you do it. That is the mint trick and we'll see whether it's a myth or not, whether or not it gets rid of those pesky hive beetles from the hive.

Check the hive a week later

Let's get in there, have a look. We put them in last week and see if there's any hive beetles in this hive. So first of all, I could have a look from here. Whoa, hive beetles everywhere. A lot more hive beetles than before. That's interesting. 

Next we're going to peel off the queen excluder and have a look in each corner where we put those mints and see if there's anything remaining.

I can see no trace of the mints. So the bees have pretty quickly chewed those mints away. So it was a week ago that we put them in. So who knows, perhaps the mint scared the hive beetles away for a couple of days and once they cleared out the mints they came back. Let us know what you think, whether it's myth or whether you think it works. So we saw straight away there was plenty of hive beetles after putting mints in the hive a week ago. So we suspect it's a myth but it's only a test of one. So if you wanna test this, let us know how you go.

Viewer’s tip

We use sugarless tic-tacs in the pest tray and it seems to work. You might have more success by locating the candies lower in the hive.

Cedar:

Sugarless tic-tacs. Okay, another another one to try. Now if we put those mints in the pest tray, the bees wouldn't have been able to chew them up. So perhaps that's the next thing to try.

Want more? Watch past videos, and get notified of livestreams as they stream on Facebook here. 

For in-depth training, check out our online beekeeping course at TheBeekeeper.org.