A Better Moth Trap

Yes, you read that right.  A Moth Trap.  Last year we lost a hive of bees to wax moths.  I'd like to avoid that this year, if at all possible.  There are chemical treatments you can do, but we don't want to use chemicals.  I began to search for natural methods.  The reason this search was intensified was due to what I saw in the first hive on the left.

The two hives on the left that only have 1 deep box are two swarms that we caught in the yard.  While I was watching all the activity, I watched a MOTH crawl out of the box on the left!  Oh no.  The best way to ward off wax moths is to have a strong colony.  A healthy hive of bees will get rid of the wax moths and larvae because there are enough numbers to protect the hive.  We have a problem here.  The swarm is small.  The queen just started laying, so the numbers are low.  In about a week or so the colony should be growing exponentially, but will the hive be destroyed before the cavalry arrives?

I read about some traps that you can build to attract moths and kill them before they damage your hives.  The idea is to lure them away from your bees.  The trap is made with some plastic bottles that you cut a quarter-sized hole in the neck.  You make a concoction of 1 cup vinegar, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup warm water and a banana peel.  You put that concoction in the plastic bottle and hang it near your bee hives.  That's what I did.

I actually made two.  Now, we wait.  The moths will smell the decaying banana peel and sugar, vinegar and water fermenting.  They go into the bottle and never come out.  Or so I'm told.  Let's see what happens...

The same afternoon I went out to check the traps.  There was already a moth in one of them!

A day later, I checked them and there are drowned moths in both bottles.

These moth traps work.  Moths are drawn to them like... well, like a moth to a flame.  Hopefully, we can catch enough of them to put a dent in the wax moth population.

Where Moths Doth Corrupt

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:”  Matthew 6:19

In our first year of beekeeping we were successful in catching four swarms of honeybees.  When you catch them like that, they're priced right - FREE.  As of right now, we have three of the four hives.  We lost one.  In 1787 Benjamin Franklin was asked about what form of government the founders were establishing.  He answered, "A republic, if you can keep it."  He was stating the obvious and something we are all too familiar with - A republic is hard to keep, and comes with a tall order for the citizens to have the responsibility to maintain it.

Similarly, we were gifted bees and they were ours - if we could keep them.  We learned firsthand about the responsibility to keep them.  Even doing our best, we lost one of them to WAX MOTHS.  The wax moth (Galleria mellonella) might have a fancy name, but they ruined one of our hives.  If you have a strong hive, they will keep these scavengers in check.  If you don't, they'll take over.  

Moths will enter the hive and lay eggs in a hidden place where the bees won't see them.  The larva hatches and eats through the comb and honey, spinning webs and cocoons.  They mature to a larva that's about an inch long.  Then they pupate and overwhelm and destroy the hive.   It's easy to blame the wax moths, but the real question to ask is, "Why was the hive so weak that it couldn't protect itself?"  It could be that they lost their queen.  Or perhaps she was just not laying enough eggs.  Maybe varroa mites weakened the colony.  

Whatever happened, all we can do is clean up the box and frames.  I put on my bee suit and went and got it.  I pulled off the top and you can see the damage immediately.  Can you see all the cocoons?  I started to scrape all that off with my hive tool.

They even ate into the wood.  I actually pulled out two larva that were still alive.  They weren't alive for long, though.

You can see how they decimated the frames and foundation, just destroying all the drawn comb.

The entire side of the box was almost completely covered with cocoons.

It took me a couple of hours of scraping, brushing and then using compressed air to blow out the mess.  Now that they're cleaned up, we we be able to use them again, but they'll only be used on strong hives in the event there are more alive that I didn't see.  In the future, if we see one hive getting weak, we'll stack those on top of a stronger hive.  Maybe we'll save it that way.

Trouble in One of the Hives

On the second Thursday of each month, the Bayou Beekeepers Club meets at Green's Cafe in Jennings.  The meeting starts at 6pm where we order food (generally fried shrimp or cheeseburgers) and we visit for an hour while we eat.  At 7pm sharp the meeting is called to order.  We stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and then we are led in prayer.  

The meeting generally goes on for about an hour and a half.  We discuss things we should be doing in our hives and learn about events that we should prepare for during each month.  Questions are asked and answered by members of the club.  Reports are given about things that people are seeing or experiencing with their bees.  The funny thing about beekeepers is everyone does things a little differently.  One person will tell you to do something and the next says, "Never do that!"  People have their own way of doing things and it works for them.  We have some very large commercial beekeepers as well as hobbyists who only have one hive.  

The club wants to raise up a new generation of beekeepers so we sponsor Hathaway High School.  In their Ag Department (FFA) they now have a number of hives and have gotten a grant to buy bee suits and equipment.  They recently pulled honey and are selling it and have made a lot of money to help the program.  We're now starting another neighboring town's ag department with bees.  The students really enjoy learning about bees and working in the hives.

Bayou Beekeepers Club in Jennings, LA

There is a funky smell coming from our hives.  The bees are making Golden rod honey and the honey really stinks - just like sweaty gym socks.  If you just walk by the hives, you can smell it.  Our goal is to pull some of this honey before too long as it is supposed to be really good for you.  

But there is trouble in one of the hives.  I noticed when walking past one just last week.  If you look, you'll see honeycomb and honey and devastation coming out of one of the boxes.  "What is it,?"  I asked the president of our beekeeper's club as I showed him a photo of what you see below.

Infestation of wax moths!  We've lost one of the hives.  Wax moths move into a weak hive.  A weak hive is one where the population of bees is down.  It could be caused by a queen not laying as many eggs as she should or other problems resulting in a weak hive.  A strong hive repels and pushes away predators.  In a weak hive, a wax moth comes in and lays eggs in the comb.  The larvae eat the comb, the pollen, the honey and destroy the entire colony.

We'll have to clean the entire box out as we've lost all the bees and this spring, we'll either make a split or we'll catch another swarm to replace this one.  It is unfortunate, but we were told that we need to have more than one box of bees, because sooner or later, we'll lose some.  So how do we keep this from happening again?  That is the big question.

We make sure each colony is strong.  If one gets weak, we may combine two hives so that they have the number to fight off wax moths.  I've read that wax moths hate mint.  I'm looking into planting mint all around the hives.  All I know is that we have quite a mess to clean up in this box so that we can be prepared for the spring.  I don't want wax moths to move in and decimate another hive, so I'm going to learn more about combatting them.