I have been away from posting in the forum for a while but I have always been checking in and reading posts. I just had a baby 8 weeks ago :-D, so needless to say my hives have been suffering a bit of neglect :oops:
I had two strong hives that didn't require much work last summer which was a relief. I checked the bees a few times throughout the summer and fed them in the fall before winter but otherwise I pretty much left the bees to themselves and they made it through the winter and did pretty good thanks to the mild weather.
Last week I opened the hives up for the first time since the fall and there was plenty of activity going on which was great. Unfortunately as I got into one of my hives and started removing frames to check things out I noticed a good amount of larvae GROSS! The weather was not improving too much that day so I closed up shop and went inside and kicked myself a little. The weather has been pretty terrible this week but tomorrow I plan on getting into my hives for most of the afternoon.
Any suggestions on what my plan of action should be while I am out there? I will take some pictures and post back tomorrow. My hives don't seem weak really so I am hoping the moths have not completely taken over.
--Mary
First of all congratulations with your baby! 1st, 2nd etc? The first one is by far the toughest but it obviously gets better.
This is my 2-cents and it may be overpriced.
What kinda of larva are you looking at? Is it wax moth or SHB? Either way what I'd do is make sure your hives are queen right by finding eggs or really young brood. Assuming I find they are queen right, I'd cut down the size of the hive to a level that they can defend (1 deep instead of 2, or even a 5-frame nuc). Take the infested frames out of the hive and put them in the freezer to kill off whatever is in there. Next, in the next few weeks, as the hive regains it's strength (assuming wax moth larva) give the frames back to the hive to clean up and repair. Assuming SHB's completely remove the infested areas and let them rebuild.
If you're queenless?, steal some eggs from the queenright hive to give to your queenless hive and get a queen on order.
First baby and he is pretty good so far and letting us get some pretty decent sleep.
Might be SBH. The larvae is short and fat. I didn't see any beetles when I was in the hive and I also didn't see any moth "webbing" so I figured it was only the beginning of something not good.
Freeze the hive if the whole thing is dead. If just a few frames are wormy, freeze them. This will kill out the SHB. Remove some of the open space to make the bees run the beetles. You will need to see why the bees are week.
I was able to get out there today and take a look. My hive does not seem weak and the queen is there. I took some pictures to give anyone interested a view at what I am seeing here is the link http://beesbees.shutterfly.com/ (http://beesbees.shutterfly.com/)
This looks more like SBH the more I have been reading, but feel free to let me know if I am way off. There seemed to be less today then there was when I was out there a couple of weeks ago. I scraped off what I could and reduced some space. I could see the bees working hard to get rid of these things so I am hoping I helped today.
I didn't see anything that looked like a pest to me. All I saw were bee pupua; white grubs with purple eyes. I'm guessing these appeared between the boxes? When you seperate boxes you break up drone cells they build between the gaps and that exposes the bee pupae.
pupae, scrape burr comb discard.
In case anybody does have wax moths, they really don't make visible webbing until they get to about their 4th instar/molt. Wax moths start out very small; you can barely see them. They don't do a whole lot of damage until they get big enough to make said webs. If anybody out there does has a modest amount of baby wax moths in their hives, you can often get those under control by removing pollen frames and scrapping off as many wax moths as you can see. The bees can corral up the remaining wax moths if you have enough bees in the hive. Reeegs, in your case I didn't' see any wax moths in your photos.
Looks like all drone larvae in the burr comb.
Scott
I agree on the drone larva in burr comb. For what it's worth,these are a good place to look for mites. It may be the first place you'll notice them.
Agree on the drone larvae. These are not pest larvae. More than likely you have worker larvae further down the frame so don't put these in the freezer. You need a mentor to help you. Join a beeclub ASAP.
I'm not too sure but in the second frame, lower mid frame is that a mite I'm seeing on the drone pupa? Hard to tell without zoom.
Scott
Nothing to worry about in this hive!
You've gotten the straight skinny. I would when the opportunity arises scrape down the top and bottom bars, unfortunately they will rebuild that ladder comb, just to make manipulations a little less messy.