Small Hive Beetle, back, beltsville, md

The tricky Small Hive Beetle. One of the banes of bee keepers, Aethina tumida. Small things, about the size of half an eraser head. These beetles smell like bees and even sometimes get fed by bees. As you will see in another post showing the larva, it is not the adults that are the problem to the bee keeper it is ....the bad habits of the babies. Once in the hive, they are hard to get out of the hive or to eliminate without eliminating the bees too. Thanks to transportation these beetles traveled from their native Africa and now are found throughout North America. Specimen from the Francisco Posada...bee whisperer and beetle wrangler for USDA, Beltsville. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.