Tunneling out?

yes2matt · January 23, 2016, 05:14:43 PM

A friend gave me some woodenware. Some of it's in pretty bad shape. I'm using (part of) a snow day to clean it up. Pictured is the inside of a 10 deep super. Is that from the bees trying to make themselves a second entrance?

AR Beekeeper · January 23, 2016, 05:30:16 PM

No, that is caused by wax moth larvae. When the larvae spin their cocoons they chew the wood and make themselves an indention for the cocoons to rest in.

yes2matt · January 23, 2016, 05:56:50 PM

Thanks. Definitely lots of wax moth trash in this stuff. It might not be time/cost effective to clean it up. :/

Dallasbeek · January 23, 2016, 06:15:50 PM

If the wax moths and larvae are gone, does it really need to be cleaned up, or will the bees propolize or otherwise " clean it?"

I guess you could use something like Bobdo to fill in the crevices, but is it necessary?

sc-bee · January 23, 2016, 06:18:35 PM

It is not necessary to fill them in...

BeeMaster2 · January 23, 2016, 08:10:57 PM

X2, just use them.
Jim

yes2matt · January 24, 2016, 06:14:30 AM

Oh, I'm not tempted to putty it smooth! But if the super looks like this after a good scraping, you might imagine what the frames look like.

BeeMaster2 · January 24, 2016, 09:40:35 AM

Matt,
Most of us that have been beekeeping more than a couple of years do not have to imagine. We have lots of those frames in our hives.

Jim

Rurification · January 24, 2016, 10:35:52 AM

Thanks for posting the pics. It's good to see things like that for when it happens to us. Because eventually, it will happen to us.