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Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:31 Oct 2020, 17:51
by NigelP
Thornes sell them plus a burner, although easy to make a burner of your own. Basically a tin can with holes and lid and bent nail to stick stick doubled over strips.
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:01 Nov 2020, 14:41
by Chrisbarlow
NigelP wrote: ↑31 Oct 2020, 17:51
Thornes sell them plus a burner, although easy to make a burner of your own. Basically a tin can with holes and lid and bent nail to stick stick doubled over strips.
Cheers Nigel. But is that where you get your stash from
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:01 Nov 2020, 16:14
by NigelP
Yes, they are the cheapest at around £7 for approx 80 strips.
Also called sulphur wicks, which you will find in home brew shops for sterilising insides of barrels, although these seem quite expensive in comparison at £4.95 for 10 strips.
Be careful as many garden centers/suppliers sell sulphur burners, but these are not the same as they "vaporise" the sulphur and leave a fine coating of sulphur over the surfaces (used in green houses for pest control), they liquify the sulphur and no SO2 is prodcuced....as is the case when you burn the strips.
Be careful to not inhale the gas, it's quite toxic...i.e light blue (in this case yellow) touch paper and stand well back.
I make a stack of supers/brood boxes. Then find an empty brood box to surround the burner which stands on top of the the frames in the top box. You need a tight fitting wooden lid (plastic will get melted as they create quite a bit of heat). Light the strip, add brood box and lid, strap up and leave for an hour or so. Remove brood/lid/burner and add new lid and strap down for winter.
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:01 Nov 2020, 17:15
by Chrisbarlow
NigelP wrote: ↑01 Nov 2020, 16:14
Yes, they are the cheapest at around £7 for approx 80 strips.
Also called sulphur wicks, which you will find in home brew shops for sterilising insides of barrels, although these seem quite expensive in comparison at £4.95 for 10 strips.
Be careful as many garden centers/suppliers sell sulphur burners, but these are not the same as they "vaporise" the sulphur and leave a fine coating of sulphur over the surfaces (used in green houses for pest control), they liquify the sulphur and no SO2 is prodcuced....as is the case when you burn the strips.
Be careful to not inhale the gas, it's quite toxic...i.e light blue (in this case yellow) touch paper and stand well back.
I make a stack of supers/brood boxes. Then find an empty brood box to surround the burner which stands on top of the the frames in the top box. You need a tight fitting wooden lid (plastic will get melted as they create quite a bit of heat). Light the strip, add brood box and lid, strap up and leave for an hour or so. Remove brood/lid/burner and add new lid and strap down for winter.
cheers Nigel. an insightful post. I will indulge, Thornes says 20 per pack. I suspect 80 was a typo.
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:02 Nov 2020, 08:26
by NigelP
Wishful thinking....juts counted and unopened pack and there are 40.....
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:27 Aug 2021, 18:56
by NigelP
A question for anyone who has ever had wax moth problems. Do you find they mainly attack supers or brood frames?
In my experience I have never had a super affected, just brood frames with their higher protein content.
Reason for asking is latest BBKA mag suggests protecting supers before storing against wax moths..same article also suggest damp is more of a killer than cold with the usual no explanation as to why this may be.
You know, the more articles I read the more I'm finding that beekeeping is taught as a set of dogma's that are repeated and repeated through the generations with no thought or adaption as to what is really happening.
i.e never let the facts get in the way of a good dogma
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:27 Aug 2021, 19:36
by Steve 1972
I have only had one problem with wax moth and that was last year..luckily the wet supers where separated with monoflex..the box in question had a few super frames that had previously had brood in them through a dodgy Queen excluder ..the few super frames that did not have brood in them where fine...I
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:27 Aug 2021, 22:16
by Patrick
I only really appreciated that unbred in supers were relatively safe from wax moth when PCB crystals were banned and I stored them outside au natural without incident. However, I think it pays to rotate them in use every year. I do not think supers stored unused for more than a couple of years are invulnerable.
I am just careful to store any old brood frames separately and try to keep them to the minimum.
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:28 Aug 2021, 09:35
by AdamD
I don't usually have many brood frames to store over winter as they finish up in hives. However my Norfolk wax moths will go for super frames as well as brood. They have also gone through polystyrene boxes too; It's most annoying to fill up a feeder in an apidea or swinebine mini-nuc to find that the syrup runs out of a little hole at the bottom of the feeder.
Re: Wax Moth
PostPosted:28 Aug 2021, 19:05
by NigelP
Interesting Adam.
Are you storing your supers inside or outside?
When I think about it, it may be down to preference as to what is available at the time the moths are laying. I've had "dry" undrawn foundation destroyed in my mini nucs in the past....but over the summer. I guess I've got about 10 brood boxes of used brood foundation stored and will have about about 20 supers worth of dry foundation plus about another 40 empty supers after heather extraction....so they have plenty of choice
