Hello--
I'd like to know what one can do about wax moths if they are DETERMINED to
wipe out your hives.
 
We lost two of our four hives in early September to wax moths, with severe
infestation within five weeks of inpecting the hives and seeing no signs of
any.  Though at least one of these two had been very strong at inspection, now
there was only one frame (out of 40 altogether)  with any sign of brood at
all.  We opened up the ruined hives away from their normal location, to let
the light get to the worms, and were told that the bees left on the comb would
likely drift back to the two remaining hives (which stood a few feet away from
"home base").  I assumed this would make the remaining hives stronger (which
should make it more resistant to the moths, right?).
 
This past Tuesday we noticed a couple of adult moths around one of the two
surviving hives, and on inspection, found some infestation in the bottom box
of one hive only, along with different stages of brood in the upper box (and
no worms up there).  We did not notice any eggs, but thought it might be
because the season is over.  We fully inspected the second hive also, and
found no worms and the same stages of brood.  We decided to combine the hives
by adding the "clean" upper deep & super of the first hive to the apparently
worm free second hive.  It was our hope that this would strengthen them both
enough to prevent further wax moth infestation and enable them to overwinter.
We hoped we had found it early enough to avert disaster.  Two days later, my
husband noticed a couple more adult moths flying around our now ONLY SURVIVING
HIVE.
 
I have seen alot of information posted here on treating one's equipment to
prevent wax moth damage in STORAGE; however, I  now wonder if there might be
some sort of treatment to prevent the moths/worms from infesting an active
colony?  We are only two-year beginners, having split our original two last
year into four, but it was definitely our impression that three of the four
hives were fairly strong.  I would not have been surprised to find only the
weakest infested, but finding this much problem is getting quite discouraging.
 
We are in southeastern PA (Lancaster county), where temperatures are just
getting to nearly frost at night.  We have followed schedules for mite
treatment with Apistan, and though we did not get much of a surplus honey crop
this year, each hive had a nearly full super of stores when we first found the
problem.  Where have we gone wrong to have have these worms so firmly
entrenched?  I'm beginning to wonder if we're cut out for beekeeping after
all.
 
Kate R.