Wax Moths
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- Nursebee
- Posts: 40
- Joined: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:05 pm
Wax Moths
When a hive got robbed out this summer I got most of the frames in the freezer right away. But I didn't have room for one medium box of frames. Today I went to put them in the freezer (should have done this much earlier) and wax moths have made there way through a few frames. They are in the freezer now. Can I reuse these frames and let the bees repair the foundation or should I put new foundation in these? I would say an area of about 1/6th of a frame is affected.
Re: Wax Moths
I'm assuming you are working with wax foundation; a really strong hive with a really good nectar flow will pull out the remainder of the mess and repair the comb (fill in with new comb). If the hive is not really strong, is not in the nectar flow, or is not in a situation where the bees feel they need more space, they may clean out the mess, but they will leave gaps in the comb until wax drawing conditions return. My experience with plastic foundation is that unless you can really clean out pupa casings and get the plastic very clean, even if you give it a good coat of wax, the bees may not like the surface and draw wonky comb-comb with a slight gap between it and the foundation or comb that goes out from the foundation across toward the next frame.