Bee-keeping, Wax Moth, The downside!!

Hey everyone, did you see my last bee-keeping post? If not check it out over here.https://steemit.com/homesteading/@craigcryptoking/my-bee-keeping-journey-in-south-africa-bee-gins-here Now, as with most things in life it's not all 'peaches and cream' in my last post I was very optimistic about the prospect of bee-keeping but sadly there are cons, the pro's however do and will always out-weigh the cons but it is important to paint a holistic picture and here it is! WAX MOTH a HORRID little moth that literally kills the whole swarm, one would think the bees would be able to kill it, but sadly to the contrary this is not so. The only way to control this scourge and bee-keepers nightmare, is to literally burn the whole hive, to save all the rest, if this gets out of hand and spreads can literally wipe out all your swarms and has in the past to many a bee-keeper!

About 3 weeks ago I was so happy to see we had another swarm move into a vacant hive, this is always first prize, the more bees = more honey, joy, happiness etc! I quickly informed my landlord and partner to be, about this exciting prospect. Daily, I inspected these awesome little incredible insects doing what they do, the swarm was growing and it was bliss. Two days ago I walked past the hive and saw no activity at all, I thought oh maybe they went to bed early? The next day I woke up and inspected the hive again and still no activity. At this point the hive needed to be opened and inspected, and this was what I saw..

As a bee-keeper this is the last thing you want to see, these terrible creatures move in, make nests and destroy the hive!

These bees had been in this hive for ten days maybe and had already made such quick, amazing progress the wax combs were already about half built,until the wax moth pulled in and destroyed it all. I opened the hive removed all the combs and now need to destroy all the remaining wax moth eggs to prevent this from happening again and if this is not done correctly can and will!

More on the wax moth here as per wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_wax_moth this is not entirely accurate though as we have discovered first hand how they wipe out the whole swarm!

When at first I opened this hive it looked rather promising these are relatively healthy looking combs, sadly however on further inspection I was wrong.

After removing a few more combs this is what was revealed to me, a most unpleasant sight indeed. I removed all the combs burnt them all and start again, we certainly shall. I still have three more thriving hives to harvest and in time will be adding more hives catch more swarms and carry on the pursuit of becoming a top Honey producer in South Africa.

Be sure to stay tuned for more on this incredible journey. I will be posting many pictures and video's in future!

Have a super evening.

Cheer$;)