Author Topic: WOW! waxmoths and shb  (Read 2489 times)

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Offline tedh

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WOW! waxmoths and shb
« on: September 12, 2019, 02:47:14 pm »
Hey Everyone,
I've been going through hives doing a "this time of the year" assessment.  Here's what I'm finding:  The hives that are just okay are being over taken by both wax moths and small hive beetles.  So far we've lost two, one was stuffed with moth cocoons larva, worms and small hive beetles, hideous to look at and worse to work with, more on that later.  I've also shook out two so that I could freeze the frames.  The only hives that seem to be dodging the pest bullet are the booming hives, those completely stuffed with bees.  I must say for this to be my first introduction to shb this is a real eye opener.  I have never seen anything like this, one week everything seems fine then BAM, like some horrible dark magic, the colony is crashing and the bugs are taking over.  The state apiarist was here last week and couldn't figure out why.  He's sending in a frame to be tested, apparently they have some disease specific tests and can at least tell us what it isn't.  My suggestion for anyone in the area is to check your hives closely and often.

When I opened the assumed deadout it was so awful that I decided to deal with it last and moved on to the next hive.  This was one of the shake outs and when I pulled the bottom box off of the bottom board a bunch of bees made their way over and into the deadout.  I thought that was odd but had things to do so I kept working. The nasty hive that I thought was dead was taken apart, tele cover and inner cover in the truck, put the top box in and grabbed the bottom box when I noticed bees coming out so banged it on the stand, a bunch of bees fell out so I wished them well and drove away to get rid of frames and clean the rest of the equipment.  I wondered if maybe that colony (and queen) was still alive and trying to live in the bottom 3rd of the bottom box but was busy so kept going.  Flash forward to today, I went back over to check the last two hives there and saw a cluster of bees hanging on the underside of the stand were the assumed deadout was.  Curious about that I grabbed a nuc box and brushed them into it. Ten minutes later there's several bees fanning the entrance.  Does that mean I have a queen in there or are they fanning because its hot and humid?  Apologies for the long multi directional post and I'll be glad to clarify anything I've made confusing. 8)  Thanks, Ted
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Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: WOW! waxmoths and shb
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2019, 03:58:32 pm »
My opinion is that you have a queen in that small cluster.  I'm not an expert.  I had a similar situation last year.  I found the queen all by herself crawling on top of a brood box I had moved to the garage.  I thought it was a dead out.  Maybe they absconded and left her all alone.

Offline tedh

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Re: WOW! waxmoths and shb
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2019, 05:38:57 pm »
Thanks Bakersdozen!  I'm going to give it a look, tomorrow.  I'm hot and worn out.  Ted
Share that which you have an abundance of.  In doing so both the giver and receiver are enriched.

Offline Some Day

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Re: WOW! waxmoths and shb
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2019, 05:57:17 pm »
Ted,

Was it Andy J. that did the inspection?  Do you have results back yet?  Wayne

Offline tedh

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Re: WOW! waxmoths and shb
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2019, 07:20:18 pm »
Yeah, it was Andy, and man did he lose some weight!  The beards gone too, cat looks totally different.  No results yet.  Apparently they will go to Andy and myself.  We should have them in a week or so.
Share that which you have an abundance of.  In doing so both the giver and receiver are enriched.