OMG we have wax worms!

[GBov]

My hubby - wonderful man - got me two hives for Mothers day last spring.  We only got honey out of one of them because the queen in the other hive got herself stuck between the SHB trap - the plastic one that fits on top of the frames - and queen excluder.  She was fine when we found her but with her being stuck for about two weeks, no new eggs got laid.  We took brood comb from our strong hive to give to that one and it came back swimmingly and is now our strongest hive.

But the other one, that was our best hive, now has a major problem!

All summer it was in full sun but with the change in seasons, its now shaded in hte morning and for most of the day.  Having noticed the bees arent as active as the other hive - its still in full sun - we opened it up.

SHOCK, HORROR!!!  Its got webbing and lots of damage and we dont know what to do!

Please, can you tell me what we should do to help them out?  I trimmed the fronds of the palm tree next to the hive so we can move it sidewase a bit into more sun, its the fence shading it, but it will still not be in full sun.  There is a lovely spot we could move it too but it would be a move of about 13 ft and we read that a hive should be moved three feet or three miles, nothing inbetween.

And what is up with my typing?  Each time I press a letter my text jumps to the top of my post!  Is it just my computer or a bee forum glitch? Its proving hard to type if I cant see what I am typing and it keeps flickering.  Argh!

[Michael Bush]

Wax moths are opportunists.  They take advantage of a weak hive.  All you can do is remove all the combs the bees can't cover and freeze those.  Any combs the bees are covering that are not brood, I would remove them and freeze them and after thawing put them back in.

[GBov]

And now we have no bees 

We took the hive apart and found....................

Some dead brood but not much.
NO HONEY AT ALL!
Lots of pollen packed cells.
One hatched queen cell and one capped but not hatched queen cell.

And not as many wax worms as I expected.  It looked like they were just getting hold of the hive so hadnt been there that long.

As we took the super off that hive a a week and a half ago and it had bees then, what happened between then and now?

And what do we do with the frames of pollen and drawn comb?  I put the two frames with lots of webbing into the freezer and fed several pupa to a chicken but what now?  Can I freeze the frames in batches - freezer space limited - seal them into plastic bags and then put it all back together with a package of bees in the spring?

[Michael Bush]

Sounds like they dwindled and then starved.  Freeze all the frames.  Yes, freeze them in batches.

[tedlemay]

I had a hive that absconded this summer. Then the wax mothes moved in. I took all the frames, put them in the freezer. Later i used some to start a fall nuc. All worked well.