I've only lose 1% out of 100 of the drawn comb last season. The only frame with the
most damage I seam it down with some small pieces of wax foundation for the bees to redraw them out.
Another frame with hardly anything left on the foundation only linked by the cells, the bees have
completely rebuilt the foundation while attaching these cells together to form a new drawn comb again. Glad that I
have good wax repairing bees this season.
The rest of the drawn combs with single row cells that got damaged by the large wax larvae the bees can repair these cells. If you
think about it I did not lose any drawn comb at all because the bees have repair them all.
This is how I did it this past season, an outline:
1) Wrap the drawn comb all around in food grade plastic films. I use kirkland films from costco. A double layer is better than a single layer and even better in a triple layer.
2) Stored the frames in big thick cardboard boxes with the lids sealed tight using shipping/packing tapes.
3) Before taping the box put a small chunk of wax in that has been infused with essential oil like cedar, sandle wood, lavendar, bay leaves, etc. Any essential oil that the wax months don't like to live in.
Under such an environment inside the box the wax months can only do so much damage. They cannot come out the triple layer of films to multiply only died inside the comb. Also, I took the opportunity to run a small experiment by comparing the freeze and unfreeze comb. The unfreeze comb got the most wax month damages because their eggs can live for a month and still hatches. That is why it is very important to freeze the comb first before wrapping them. This season I will freeze the comb first before putting them in storage. If the saying is true that the drawn combs are as precious as gold then you're wrapping gold. So spend some time in this area will pay big dividends later on. It certainly did for me!
Wrapped comb frames:
http://imgbox.com/4TyYYzaFEmerged moth inside the wrap:
http://imgbox.com/fVC1pCBM