From: Peter Dillon <pdillon@club-internet.fr>
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 22:07:42 +0100
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: what does a wax moth look like?

Julia,
Hopefully your bees will survive the winter - but with wax moth in the hive it suggests that they are not protecting the frames to a level that is required. This in turn suggests that the colony is for some reason too small for the hive box. At this time of the year it is presumably too late to do many things. If you had a spare colony in better shape it might have been possible to exchange a frame of emerging brood - but care needed not to weaken the donor hive at this season.

So, what to do? Feed the hive some sugar solution hopefully to ensure that there is enough young bees to carry through the winter. Look at the outside frames - if there is no damage from wax moth - tough spiders web like material tangled in the wax, then leave until next spring to deal with the moth.
If there is damage, then remove the frames that are damaged, replacing with clean drawn out frames.
Ensure that the bees have plenty of stores - and if lacking, as suggested feed until the hive has the weight required to survive in your climatic conditions.

During winter, may I suggest that you do two things:
1. If not already a member of a local association - then join and ask for the info. that you require.
2. Get hold of a general beekeeping manual - the association will be able to suggest one or two and read, read and read.

This will ensure that next year you will be prepared for many of the happenings occurring in the bee world.

A side effect of this will be that you will no doubt be able to answer some of your questions but pose many more!

Best wishes
Peter

P.S. Both Wax moths are a scruffy mottled gray insect, shunning light, rather fast running. The lesser wax moth being 0.75 inches long, the larger wax moth being 1.5 inches long.