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The small hive beetle Aethina tumida (SHB) Murray,1867, is an invasive bee pest that is expanding its range across Latin America, parts of Australia and the Philippines, and is now established in two regions in Italy. However, despite multiple recent introductions, there is scant information about the dynamics of the initial stages of colonization of the SHB and this knowledge gap could impact management and quarantine strategies decisions for many countries. This note describes the monitoring strategies and the patterns of SHB establishment in a previously SHB‐free apiary on the island of Oahu, Hawaii in 2010–2011. The weekly hive inspections, conducted over a ten‐month period, showed that beetle prevalence increased slowly at the apiary level, and adult beetles were more commonly found (87.9%) inside the oil traps that were placed inside the hives between the outermost frames of the hive. There were relatively few "free roaming" beetles detected at this point and they were more often found on the side frames and underneath the cover of the hive, not on the floor of the hive. The results also suggest that in the early stages of colonization careful visual inspections of the frames of each colony had relatively low detection success when compared to oil traps. Our results support previous modelling studies that suggest the need to inspect a high proportion of colonies per apiary (>80%) to ensure a 5% detection rate during the initial stages of invasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed the complete mitochondrial genome of the small hive beetle Aethina tumida, a major honeybee pest that was accidentally transported to the Hawaii Islands, USA. The mitochondrial genome of A. tumida was identified as a 15,198 bp circular molecule containing 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, and two rRNA genes, along with one A + T-rich control region. The average AT content was found to be 76.2%. The heavy strand was predicted to have nine protein-coding and 14 tRNA genes; while the light strand was predicted to contain four protein-coding, eight tRNA, and two rRNA genes. Among the 13 PCGs, the initiation codon ATT was found in five, ATA in three, ATG in four, and TTG in one gene. Six PCGs used TAA as the stop codon, whereas three PCGs used TAG as the stop codon. Incomplete stop codon TA (COIII, ND5, and ND4) and T (COII) were identified. We found that the genetic distance between A. tumida from Hawaii and the beetles' natural home South Africa, was small, indicating that the Hawaii population may have originated for the South Africa region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]