[Today’s run: rest day]
Earlier this spring we split our two hives to make four hives. We put new queens in each of the four hives.
Well, three of the hives didn’t do very well. One is doing great. The difference is in how many new bees they produce. A beehive has to have a minimum population in order to keep the system working. In our case, the poorly doing hives have fallen victim to wax moths.
Wax moths come into the hive and lay lots of eggs in the comb. When the eggs hatch you have hundreds of little 1/2-inch worms come out, and they grow into 1-inch worms and eat all of the wax, turning it into stringy glop. And then they spin cocoons and turn into adult wax moths and round and round it goes. By this time all the bees are dead or gone.
The key is having enough bees in the allotted space so as to have some watching the entrance at all times, keeping out the wax moths, wasps, spiders, and other stuff that wants to live in a nice cozy beehive.
Bees don’t sting the other bugs. That would be nice. Generally they just shoo them away or wall them in with bee-glue (a stuff they use to fill in holes). It’s kind of like trying to keep the cold wind out of a leaky house by using just paint.
So, you have to have enough of a population to keep things under control. And our hives were too much space, too few bees… wax moths.
Now we have reduced the space and combined two of the poorly-doing hives. I’ve been melting down the wax that has the worms in it. It kills the worms and the wax is worth having. I have more of that yet to do. We are hoping the new arrangement will give us, again, two good strong hives.