The devil's insect

[JP]

I was pulling supers to harvest a lil while ago and one of my hives had a wicked case of wax moth and I doubt they will recover. I have run across and dealt with wax moth before but nothing of this magnitude. The hive was 2 deeps and a medium, hardly any bees left and the nastiest looking crap throughout the entire set up. I checked this hive two weeks ago and it was fine, I added a medium. I pulled out all the webbing and sprayed every frame wiyh Certan, but it would be a miracle if they recover. I've always hated fireants and mosquitos but wax moth is now on my most hated insects list. What I had to deal with was truly disgusting and saddening. I will note that this hive was in a shadier place than most of my hives.

[JP]

Let me add one more reason why I hate the wax moth. When I was scraping away the cocoons they made on the top cover, one of them squirted up and got into my left eye. My eye is still iritated, and that was an hr ago. :-x

[pdmattox]

take them worms and go fishing to get your frustration out.  They are great fish bait here.

[Cindi]

JP, man that wax moth must be just hideous.  I am sorry to hear that is has caused such a degree of devastation in your colony, and so quickly.  Scarey stuff eh?  Your hatred of the wax moth is like my hatred of the yellowjackets.  They are nasty around here later on in the summer and I have seen them strike and carry of guard bees at the entrance.  I take extreme measures now to keep these hideous insects away from my apiary.  Have a wonderful day, great life.  Cindi

[JP]

Pdmattox, there aren't enough fish in all the seas, lakes, ponds, creeks, springs, and ditches, to eat what I had in that hive.

Cindi, it was truly gross and disgusting what lied beneath the top cover, ha ha, sounds like a bee rated horror movie, ha I'm cracking myself up, ok it was a long day, but a bee-utiful one, ha ha, there I go again.

Would you believe I had traffic going in and out of that hive today ?

I didn't dare open it to see...what lay beneath, the top cover! Get the net already, I'm delerious, someone knock me out! Good nite. :-D

[Cindi]

JP, sometimes some of the oddest things strikes my curiosity.  Did you by any chance have a camera to take pictures of this ugly mess?  I would like to see what this kind of damage looks like, in case I ever come across the wax moth in my apiaries. 

When I harvested my honey last year I froze all the frames, this was by some guidance on the forum, to prevent any wax moths that may have been present.  I haven't seen them yet, and hope that I won't ever.

I wonder if we have the same species of wax moth up in the north as in the southern areas?  Hmmm...maybe I should not be so lazy and google that.  Have a wonderful day, great life and good luck with the beasties.  Cindi

[Michael Bush]

It's hard not to hate wax moths, but they are just doing what they do, and if you're going to keep bees you need to accept that they are ever present.  The wax moths don't destroy colonies, they just take advantage of them.  They do destroy a lot of nice drawn comb though.

[JP]

Michael, I know they are just doing their thing, but darn, what horrific mess for me.

Cindi, I didn't take pictures, but I do have a super I sprayed with certan and left in the sun, I could take pictures of. Perhaps someone could walk me through how to post pictures, I just haven't quite figured it out yet. My pictures are on picassa2 that google puts out. Help on loading pics would me much appreciated, thnks, JP.

[Cindi]

JP, I hope that someone can walk you through how to get pictures from picasso to the forum. 

When I download my pictures from my camera, I store them all on my desktop in folders and it is easy to retrieve them through the ImageShack.  I back up my pictures on CDs, in case of a failure of my computer.  It would be a bummer to lose pictures and it would annoy me terribly.

Put a quest out in the chat room for some help, maybe the computer tech forum, not sure which one you should go to, but surely someone will hear your plea  :)  Have a wonderful day, looking forward to one day seeing your pics.  Cind

[JP]

Thanks Cindi, I will figure it out someday, hopefully soon.

[rdy-b]

wax-moths and mice are a sure start to hygienic comb rotation ,fresh comb coming up  :-D say what happen why did they get over run to much space? weak hive? sorry for your set back. RDY-B

[JP]

Rdy-b, I thought this hive was strong, looked strong. I had extracted some honey and placed the extracted super on top of this hive two weeks ago, I guess they were not strong enough or flow was too poor for them to fill the space.