[MidwifeBee]

Well pride comes before destruction.... I was pretty proud of myself. Newbie
with 2 hives going pretty strong and some pretty good honey being made.
Noticed a lot less activity outside of Hive 1 than usual and way less then Hive 2 (few feet away). Went into hive 1 and top box that is full of honey was fine, few more bees eating off of it than i expected to see tho. Next box down (added two+ weeks ago) frames have not been built out and not very many bees hanging out. Saw a moth hangin out in this box, squashed it!
Next box down some of what I thought was brood..........now not sure if it could be wax moth larva??? no eggs, no eggs, no eggs. This box had some damage to several areas in the wax. Very bottom box had a good amount of damage and some web looking stuff, no eggs again. another moth. Only 2 moths in the hive. I did kill 1 hive beetle too.
I am devastated, cried like a girl for an hour

Hive 2 has eggs no evidence of moths or beetles. Plently of eggs, larva and working going on.
So my questions are:
Combine the hives?
If so how? and what do I use/do with the boxes or how many would I add when combining?
what would I do with honey?
How much of the wax from the infected box is trash?

Lastly is there anything natural I can do to get rid of these pests? It has been very wet and humid and relatively mild temps here (90-98) and 100-110 is normal........

Blessings and thanks in advance.
Kelli
Thanks for you help

 

[fish_stix]

Combine with your strong hive. A good strong hive will keep wax moths at bay. Not so with SHB, although others will claim success with a strong hive keeping out beetles. Just a very few adult beetles can lay enough eggs turn a hive into a slime repository. Use beetle traps and keep the hives strong. I know that most mentors recommend staying out of hives and only checking them every few weeks, but the pests take over real fast, check them often. My son and I are running about 175-180 hives right now and we open them at a minimum of every 2 weeks. Since we're building and making splits we actually are in them for detailed looksees on a weekly basis. Surprising how fast a hive can go downhill in just a week's time with the right conditions.

 

[MidwifeBee]

Studied and read lots last night and I have the general idea of how to combine. But still have a few questions that for some dang reason most books just don't discuss!
In the sick hive do I just try to get most of the bees into 1 box (or is it ok if it is 2 boxes) and then add that box to the strong hive? Note sure how many boxes i can take from weak hive to add to strong hive?
And what do I do with the box of honey that is on the weak hive?
Kelli

 

[RayMarler]

Yes, remove empty boxes from the weak hive, set the weak hive box of bees on top of strong hive with a sheet of newspaper in between them. Poke a single hole in the newspaper in the center with a pencil. Then put that box of honey on top of the whole stack.

 

[MidwifeBee]

Put on the honey even though there is already a full box? and condense the weak hive to only one box?

Kelli

 

[RayMarler]

If the honey is capped, then pull it off for your table if you like.
condense the weak hive down to remove any empty or not covered combs or damaged combs