Need help with wax moths

[Beeball Coach]

I have a new, wild colony inhabiting my old hive. This hive was empty of bees and of any obvious pests until this new colony arrived about a month and a half ago. The colony is now battling a nasty brood of wax moths.

How can I treat the hive for the moths without harming the bees/honey?

Thanks,
Coach.

[tecumseh]

Just about can't, just about everything envolves removing the frames from the bees. Freezing at 10 degrees for 24+ hours would kill the mouth and not harm the stores.

If you have another strong hive??? you can knock down the wax where ever you see wax mouth activity place on top of this very strong and the bees will clean the frame up in about a day.

First off I would suggest reducing the number of frames to the very minimum that the bees can pretty much totally cover. Treat infected frames in whatever manner you deem most effective and add frames back one or two at a time, but only as the new colonies numbers will allow them to protect the added frames.

[Tia]

tecumseh's sent you in the right--if labor intensive--direction if you want to do it right, but if you're lazy (like me) and if the "brood of wax moths" isn't too "nasty," maybe you could make sure all the webs are removed and then lightly sprinkle each frame with Bt. I use it on my stored comb and it works well to keep wax moths out--the stuff's deadly to them but will not harm the bees at all. I just buy the garden variety Bt Kurstaki from my garden center. It's sometimes sold under the name "Dipel."

[Michael Bush]

You can spray with Bt with the bees in the hive. It doesn't hurt the bees a bit.

I buy the Certan and it's a liquid spray.

http://www.beeworks.com/usacatalog/subcat33.htm

Listed as "wax moth control"


It's this:

http://www.beekeeping.com/swarm/b401_us.htm

[Robert Brenchley]

I've used certan and it worked a charm. I've tried putting badly infested frames into the centre of a broodnest, and next day all the webbing was hanging out of the hive entrance, with no trace of the worms. But if there are waxworms outside the area the bees are using, use certan.

Different strains of BT have been developed for different caterpillars, and are most effective on the target species. Other versions would probably do some good, but wouldn't be as effective.