Wax Moth at the door!

[BlueBee]

Look what I spotted trying to get into one of my mid August super insulated nucs tonight!


This was a pretty good sized wax moth, I’m going to guess it was a Galleria mellonella (aka Greater wax moth) but I don’t know for sure.  Can anybody confirm or deny that guess? 

The photo shows the entrance to one of my 2” foam nucs.  This one is a relatively strong supered nuc (5 mediums over 5 deeps).  I had this nuc reduced down to about 3 bee widths until today.  It was heavily bearded tonight so I pulled the entrance reducer.  I found the moth about 2 hours later.   This is also the nuc that was previously attacked by a skunk.  You can still see the mudd on the landing board.

Nothing too unusual around a bee yard, but I thought it was cool to actually get a photo of one of these  buggers trying to get into a hive!

[BjornBee]

This sort of thing was just mentioned and discussed recently. (Reply #12) of the following thread.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,34427.msg284323.html#msg284323

Pests are always challenging and getting into the hive. Bees are always chasing, cleaning up after, and protecting their comb from pests.

Nice picture.  ;)

[Francus]

Excellent photo!

[mushmushi]

Wow, that's a huge moth!

[BlueBee]

It’s a big moth, but unfortunately it can still fit through a 9mm slot!

As Bjorn says, I’ve got an assortment of big moths and little moths trying to get into my hives. 

Maybe I’ll try to snap a photo of some of the smaller moths trying to get in.   

Hmmmm, might be a good place to experiment with some servo controlled doors :-D

[mushmushi]

Hahaha automatic doors with pattern recognition for the bees ;)

I have started extracting some frames today and I already found a frame with 2 wax moth worms eating the frame... I've stored the frames for at most 3 weeks with a dehumidifier... Crazy how fast these buggers lay eggs.

[BlueBee]

Servo motors are very low cost anymore thanks to the explosion of the Radio Control hobbies.  You can buy a servo motor for just a few dollars :)

Then all we have to do is figure out how to separate the moths from the bees :?

If you look carefully at my photo above, you’ll see the moths eyes glow red from reflecting light.  The bees compound eyes do not (I wonder why?).  So all we have to do to make our intelligent entrance board is simply implement a red eye sensor and bye bye Mr Moth and Mrs Moth :-D