Today I was looking at activity around my 4 hives.Noticed one hive had very very few bees flying in and out while others were hopping with activity.So I decided to suit up and take a look see . Very few bees inside hive and wax moth every where on deep foundations.
I walked back to house trying to figure my next move with the hive still open.
Went back and knocked off what bees were left into another hive. After I got all hive parts back to my house I decided the best thing to do was just burn foundation and frames.
I was so disappointed as that was my strongest hive in spring and during the summer . How could this happen so fast? I was just looking and checking a little over a week ago and added a mouse guard.
I was wanting to get up to 5 hives next spring .Instead of buying 1 ,I'll have to buy 2 nuc's in the spring.
I suppose it's too late to start a new hive now as we just got our 1st cool front even thought we still have a lot of fall flowers in bloom.
Thanks for you opinions.
For some reason (queenless ?) your hive became weak and the wax moths took over. What made you decide to burn the frames and foundation? Scrape off the worms freeze the frames to kill the remaining worms and eggs. You can then place them on another hive for the bees to clean up.
There have been some good post about wax moths. Do a search and check them out.
Sorry for your loss, Steve
"I was so disappointed as that was my strongest hive in spring and during the summer . How could this happen so fast? "
One of mine that is now struggling was the strongest this summer also. 8 month old queen is still there. I also have lost hives due to moths taking over in the past month. Seems as though they are everywhere here in great numbers. I have frozen 60 combs this past week along with spraying others with something like Certan. Some comb I melted, I put some in a fire ant bed just for sadistic gratification. The eggs from 1 moth are there 1 day and a few days later 500 or more 1" long worms are in the comb.
rasp,I can identfy with the get even gratification. I think thats why I burned the whole thing seeing little worms crawing everywhere.
How can this be prevented ? It happened so quick. I believe I read some where to put menthol cystrals in the hive . However we still have flowers in full bloom. Wouldn't that ruin any honey production they made for theirselves?
This same thing happened to my very strongest hive this summer. I kept adding supers because they were growing so fast. Well I believe at least for me, I had way to many supers on that hive at a time when they were getting weaker for some reason.
I never lost my queen as I found her with the marking. But following the advice on this forum, I removed the frames that were destroyed by the wax moths and I froze any other frames that they got on, but I was able to save. I reduced the hive down to 2 medium supers and they were then able to defend themselves from the wax moths and believe it or not, this hive built up again really, really strong.
If you squeeze the remaining bees down to one super, they can keep the moths away and slowly build up again. Just for future reference.
Quote from: jimmy on October 08, 2008, 10:54:03 PM
rasp,I can identfy with the get even gratification. I think thats why I burned the whole thing seeing little worms crawing everywhere.
How can this be prevented ? It happened so quick. I believe I read some where to put menthol cystrals in the hive . However we still have flowers in full bloom. Wouldn't that ruin any honey production they made for theirselves?
http://www.beeworks.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=18
...JP
Sounds almost like Small Hive Beetles.
They(moths, shb) are almost always because there was something else wrong with the hive, because a strong hive can usually fight them off.
Mites or some other brood disease are more likely culprit, robbing the hive of vitality to the point where the secondary pests (shb, moths) can get a foothold and finish them off.
Rick
I've never burned a frame or a box because of wax moths. They will die come winter and you only have to scrape the webs out and reuse them.