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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Blair Christian <blair.christian AT gmail.com>
  • To: Elisabeth Curtis <granda.curtis AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] wax damage
  • Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:11:27 -0500

Here's my take: top frame looks like what bees do when they're in a
robbing frenzy (like if you leave the frames out for the bees to clean
up), or clean up from a wax moth or other problem. The middle frame
is definitely wax moth damage. The bottom one, it looks like wax
moths or something? Probably pollen was in there and something ate
the pollen from the bottom up... Do I see dead pupae in there? It
might be mold or fungus growing on the pollen? I don't know.

Looks like the wax moths got in there during storage.

My modus is to put the top one back in during the spring, should be
fine. With the middle one, I'd refreeze it for sure asap to kill the
wax moths and then pull out anything big leftover/brush out the wax
moth thread/feces and put them back in come spring. The bottom one,
I'd refreeze, but don't know what the stuff is in there.

The darker the comb, the more wax moth/shb larvae food there is
(leftover bee cocoons from when they molt as capped brood I think).
So it's easy to store white comb, but brown/dark comb needs to be
stored in light to keep the wax moths out....

That's as good as I can do.

Best,
Blair


On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Elisabeth Curtis
<granda.curtis AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Our empty supers are stored in a storage room near the kitchen of our common
> house. Today I found what looks to me like 3 different kinds of damage to
> the comb (photo attached). One is just eaten, one is nibbled and has what
> looks like roach feces in it, and in the last one the cells are filled with
> "stuff." If it were wood I would call it saw dust.
>
> All the supers were frozen for 48 hours before storage. I've seen wax moth
> damage and this is not like that. Anyone have any ideas? I expect where it
> has been nibbled the bees will just repair it, but what to do about the
> other damage? I don't want to gross out our bees. Thanks. -Elisabeth
>
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  • [ocba] wax damage, Elisabeth Curtis, 11/15/2012
    • Re: [ocba] wax damage, Blair Christian, 11/15/2012

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