Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: harvey on August 30, 2010, 07:44:57 pm
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I have heard of wax moths and the damage they do here on the forum but have never had the oportunity to see if for myself till today. A couple of weeks ago a attempted a cut out of a bee tree that had split and fallen. I used rubber bands and filled fifteen frames with comb. I never did get the queen though and as the stump was big enough I set the two deep hive box right in the stump and crossed my fingers. No luck, they swarmed off to a better location. It took me two weeks to go back for the hive. Today, I took the cover off and whew, it smelled bad. I saw a catipillar type worm that was almost an inch and a half run accross one of the frame tops. the frames were all stuck together and it looked like white moss! Cacoons everywhere even on empty frames. I cleaned it up the best I could and dumped the comb so as to bring home only woodenware. I will brush everything off real good before I try and put bees back in there. What a mess! Glad none of my active hives ever went down that road (YET).
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Stuff happens. I left 6 hives in my basement this year ready for swarms and have 4 drawn frames in each box. I got ready to put them back up and opened the top box and moths flew everywhere. Live and learn. You can use paramoth to repeal the moths (smells bad) or spray your frames with bt to kill their young if you are going to leave them out. They are bad in late summers because they have gotten their numbers up. They can ruin some good frames.
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Wax moths are opportunistic and will invade any dead or weak hive. Strong hives keep them at bay.
Scott
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strip off those little buggers, thread them on a hook and go fishing! best use i have ever seen for them!! :evil:
bailey
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Of course it helps if you have chickens!
...JP
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naw, fish are easier to clean than chickens! :evil:
plus the fish dont try to fly away when hooked.
bailey