Wax Moth nightmares
Updated: Aug 18, 2021
Last week I gave a one to one course to Stephan, this customer was the best trainee bee keeper I’ve met over the last few years. We discovered two hives, queen-less ,and the Wax moth had moved in and had decimated 6 frames with six horrible larvae and spin-web everywhere. The grubs, that would make great fishing line maggots, were squirming around after I split two frames that lacked bees thanks to the mothy web and uninvited invader. I had to burn the frames and re-house some bees. We ( me and Stephen) inspected 3 hives for the first time in a month and we extracted seven frames of honey. We left the disturbed hives for the bees to regroup and fight over the remaining frames that were left for them to clean before they all returned to their respective colonies.
I am redesigning my hives and supers (part of the beehive), because there is a small issue with some of them.
I have 14 hives and this week I cleaned hive one , my oldest hive , 4 frames were infested with wax moth. 4 frames were removed, the hive is fine. I did not check on Hive number 3 my second oldest remaining hive. Today , on the 16th August I discovered more the wax moth . This years temperate and varied summer climate has resulted in me seeing the worst putbreak of wax moth I've ever had. The first time I have had such an infestation.
See the picture below ( Yuck!) A month ago hive numer 3 contained 12 frames of brood, all full with honey. Today I'm left with 300 bee’s and the colony with collapse. Such a shame.
Six frames were placed in a freezer to kill off all Wax moth eggs for 48 hours.
My redesigned bee hives means the hives have bee space deigned to more tolerant or accuracy ( to millimetre engineering!) ie beespace of 8- 9 mm rather than 20m in some of my previously designed hives. My supers have become smaller and I am re engineering all my existing hives.
My next blog will be on the subject of bee biology…as I have already harvested much of my honey, and don’t expect much more this year due to the climate challenges that face every beekeeper these days.
Bee Happy….