Bob gave a presentation tonight on wax moth and how to help to deter them and about the uses of Paramoth. The best ways to deter wax moth are to keep a strong colony, store empty brood comb in cold temps, to extract quickly once supers are pulled, to allow airflow and light through stored frames.
Wax moths like brood frames over honey frames. They will eat the wax but mostly go for the brood casings and pollen in the brood frames.
You can freeze infested frames for 24 hours, this will kill the moths. You can then put frames on the hive and the bees will clean out the dead moths and repair comb. If the frames are heavily infested the best treatment is burning the frames.
Bob mentioned and displayed a treatment called Certain, or bee tea. When used it will form a bacteria that will kill the moths when they ingest it. This is not a US approved treatment. Paramoth is the only approved treatment for your hive bodies in storage to prevent and to kill wax moths, and larva. it will not kill the eggs though. Please read all the directions carefully and please also remember that paramoth is an insecticide, meant to kill moths. It needs to be aired out of your hive bodies for at least 24 hours before going on the hive, Bob suggested a longer 'airing out'.
Bob also mentioned a benefit to the wax moth. They will completely clean out a hive, and that is a good thing when dealing with an old abandoned hive that had American foul brood in it!
John also gave a presentation tonight on bait hives. He brought 3 nuc sized bait traps with him tonight to show us. He described the bait hive should have old dark comb frames with no honey or pollen, or at least very little, the hive should be pretty tightly sealed with no top entrance and bottom entrance of less than 2 inches. He attaches his bait hives to trees of the edge of the woods normally. John doesn't use and attractant oils and he usually has a 50% success rate in catching swarms. John has been keeping bees for around 40 years and maybe more. He has never purchased bees :)
All our dates for 2017 are on our website now. First Monday of every month. We hope to have field days again this summer.
Next meeting subject is American and European foulbrood. AFB has been detected in Buffalo and surrounding areas. It is really important that we learn how to recognize and then react accordingly to this devastating disease.
That's all I can remember! My glass of wine is empty and my book is calling me! I hope everyone has a wonderful and amazing Christmas and fully enjoys their family and friends this holiday season. See you in 2017!!!
Beth