Thanks to all who commented on the question of wax moths and how/where they overwinter in northern latitudes.

I had heard what Lloyd Spear noted, that Roger Morse said they arrived from the south every year.   Also what several others pointed out....they are hitchhikers with migratory outfits.

I started wondering about whether this was the whole story after I'd read several reports in the American Bee Journal from the mid-1800s about New York and other northern beekeepers who had wax moth problems.  Were people already migrating with their bees at that time?  I thought migratory beekeeping started later.  It seemed unlikely to me that if the moths just flew north by themselves, enough of them would get here in time to cause much trouble...enough trouble to write articles about.  (Although there is that Monarch Butterfly....)

What Stan wrote is what I have been wondering too.  Perhaps some small percentage does survive the winter, either in the ground, under bark....or maybe in warm beekeeper houses or even on the tops of wintering beehives, as Ari Seppälä has noticed.

I'll keep looking for info on how moths in general survive sub-freezing weather.  I usually see various moths fluttering about before I notice other insects (other than bees) in the spring when it warms up during the day but is still freezing at night...those are obviously adults. We took shovels early this March and hacked into the frosty ground for soil that introductory biology students could sift through for living invertebrates to look at.  I was skeptical about finding much, but my co-teacher (an ecologist) was confident that we'd find lots of goodies.  And to my amazement, she was right....we found more than 5 phyla and dozens of classes of invertebrates of all kinds, including insects...happily crawling around and "doing their thing" in all life stages...in just that gallon of icy topsoil!   I was impressed...of course we know they do overwinter but they were very active and there were lots of them, and that was a surprise for me.

I appreciate everyone's observations, I learned a lot.

Christina

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