
Hello from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms we are David & Sheri Burns, beekeepers, husband and wife team, here to bring you another lesson in beekeeping. Today, we’ll look at the greater wax moth that slips into our hives this time of the year and can be a challenge.
Before we begin our lesson, let me remind you that Sheri and I posted a new podcast. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.
LESSON 81: Pests & Diseases Part 2 The Great Wax Moth
Wax Moth: Friend or Foe?
David Burns, EAS Certified Master Beekeeper


It is known as the greater wax moth and yes, there is a lesser wax moth, but typically it is the great wax moth that attacks our hives. Wax moth larvae are friends to fisherman, but to the beekeeper they are our foes.
In this article I want to describe the wax moth's activity in the hive, what to do when your hive is attacked and how to keep it from happening.
WAX MOTHS IN THE HIVE

Let's sneak out into the apiary and figure out how the wax moth can take over a hive. Let's choose mid August to do our investigation. It was a hot and humid day and now it is a warm August night. The adult wax moth is flying around dodging car headlights and finally flies into our apiary, attracted to the smell of wax. The adult wax moth only lives a few days (at summer temperatures) and does not eat or drink. She flies into our test colony and slips past the guard bees and finds her way to a vacant corner inside the hive. There she begins to lay her eggs. She lays her eggs about 4-10 days after she emerges as an adult moth and lays around 300-600 eggs. Wax moth Larvae can crawl and enter surrounding hives as well.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU SEE WAX MOTHS IN YOUR HIVE

HOW TO PREVENT WAX MOTHS
Your best control against wax moths is to have a strong colony. Be careful not to place more hive boxes on than what is necessary to control swarming. Too much empty space will give small hive beetles and wax moths room to spread. Weak colonies in large hives are very inviting to wax moths. Keep your colonies tight and strong.
COMB HONEY
When selling comb honey, the comb can contain eggs and small wax moth larvae, which can grow in a warm environment. This can be very alarming to a customer. Comb honey should be frozen to kill any potentially unseen wax moth eggs or small larvae.
Bullet Points:
· Wax moths occur around the world wherever bees are kept.
· Bees will not rebuild comb on plastic foundation where there has been wax moth damage unless the foundation is recoated with beeswax.
· Wax moth larvae can travel over 150 feet to a new hive.
· Sealed bee brood can become trapped by wax moth silken threads of webbing and die from not being able to emerge.
· Moth balls (Naphthalene) can no longer be used to protect stored comb not on the hive. Para-moth (paradichlorobenzen) is a more acceptable fumigant for use with comb stored off the hive.
I hope you have enjoyed our lesson today and Sheri and I want to thank you for viewing our beekeeping lessons and hope they are helpful to you. Please consider sending your beekeeping business our way. We know you can go to much bigger beekeeping companies so we appreciate you keeping us in mind.
Check out our complete teaching video on wax moths at:
http://www.honeybeesonline.com/video.html or view it below:
OUR WEBSITE: http://www.honeybeesonline.com
PHONE: 217-427-2678
EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com
Until next time, BEE-have yourself!
Long Laney Honey Bee Farms
David & Sheri Burns
14556 N 1020 E Rd
Fairmount, IL 61841
7 comments:
Thanks for this post. With out super hot summer I was more focused on giving lots of rooms but now I see I should watch I haven't given them too much, especially now as the numbers decrease as fall approaches.
As a small time apiarist I have found that storing drawn comb in a heavy black plastic bag with dry ice that's melted on top of it, filling the bag with C02, then tying the bag tightly keeps enough oxygen out to prevent ants and wax moths. It's now my preferred off-season storage method.
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New beekeeper here. I have a hive that has been completely taken over by wax worms. There is no brood/no queen. My question is what do I do with the remaining bees? I would like to destroy the frames or freeze the hive parts before they infect my other hive but there are still bees in them. All of the places I've researched tell me why this happens, what to do with the frames, boxes etc but not what to do with the remaining bees.
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