The Bees continued….

In the continuing saga of my bees, there has been a change of events. Last time I reported that the bees had absconded and left the hive to the Wax Moths and I was resolved to having to find another swarm from somewhere. Well, this week my caretaker of the bees (they are temporarily at my friend Doug’s house), reported there was bee activity in the hive again. Yesterday, I went along to inspect and see what could be done and indeed the hive was occupied by bees and they were in the process of cleaning out all the damage caused by the wax moths. I talked to someone who knows far more than I do about beekeeping (Fred from the Bee Shop) and he thinks that a passing swarm decided to take up residence. So without me having to do anything, I have some bees again (or actually as Doug pointed out are they my bees or his bees, since it was in his back yard that they squatted in my hive – we will have to resolve the ownership later).

Doug and I cleaned up the hive, and replaced any frames that were too damaged by wax moth activity. We also removed a lot of debris and squished a lot of wax moth larvae (sorry wax moths). Apparently, wax moth larvae are highly prized by fishermen – they drive the trout crazy. Perhaps we should have gone into business selling larvae to fishermen; certainly we would have had more grubs than we will have honey to harvest this year.