Wax worms in Beehives

[elizaann2]

Hello Friends,

We just found a bunch of wax worms in our beehives. I am wondering if anyone here has experience using wax worms they have found in their beehives that could give me any advice. The hive was treated with oxylic acid last year, which is a treatment for hive mites. Does anyone know if these wax worms would be safe to feed to my chameleons?

Thanks!

 

[Steve A]

Hello Friends,

We just found a bunch of wax worms in our beehives. I am wondering if anyone here has experience using wax worms they have found in their beehives that could give me any advice. The hive was treated with oxylic acid last year, which is a treatment for hive mites. Does anyone know if these wax worms would be safe to feed to my chameleons?

Thanks!

Please keep in mind who I am. I am still very new at all of this. However, my immediate thought is: stay away from anything related to bees from the wild.

My reasoning here is that it is widely believed (and almost impossible to not be true), that issues with bee populations have been due to insecticides. Bees travel. So I really think it's best to stay away from something like that unless you are specifically keeping your own bees, you know they aren't traveling / getting near any chemicals, and you know everything is safe. If those bees have been in contact with any chemicals, then chances are those wax worms are a risk. Just my thoughts/opinion!

 

[Beman]

ehhhhhhhh I do not know specifically. But not something I would risk. You do not know the exposure of the bees in the hive either... With everyone spraying plants that they feed from it is just not a risk I would take. Wax worms are cheap to buy just buy some that are bred for feeders.

 

[elizaann2]

The bees are ours kept in hives in our backyard, that is a VERY good point though, I didn't even think of the pesticides that the bees could have brought back from neighbors spraying their yard. Thanks @anderson4584 and @Beman ! We will just get rid of the wax worms.

 

[Steve A]

The bees are ours kept in hives in our backyard, that is a VERY good point though, I didn't even think of the pesticides that the bees could have brought back from neighbors spraying their yard. Thanks @anderson4584 and @Beman ! We will just get rid of the wax worms.

That is a really cool find though! And it would be so nice to have a natural way like that to feed. I'd just be so afraid of the potential risk. It's a shame!

 

[elizaann2]

That is a really cool find though! And it would be so nice to have a natural way like that to feed. I'd just be so afraid of the potential risk. It's a shame!

My thoughts exactly. They have been eating honey and bee pollen, they would be so nutritious! Too bad....

 

[MissSkittles]

One of the first few things I learned about wax worms is that they are very fond of bee hives and honey and can pose a serious threat to them. With the poor bees having enough trouble lately just surviving, I’m always very careful with my wax worms and moths.

 

[elizaann2]

One of the first few things I learned about wax worms is that they are very fond of bee hives and honey and can pose a serious threat to them. With the poor bees having enough trouble lately just surviving, I’m always very careful with my wax worms and moths.

Ya we get them here pretty easy. Luckily the hives they were in are old hives that didn’t actually have any bees in them. They’ve just been stored in our garage for a year and they thrived in those conditions apparently.


We check our active hives often to make sure we don’t have infestations or any parasite issues like mites.

 

[absolutbill]

I'm a bee-keeper also and when I first realized that wax moths in the hives were THOSE wax moths I was excited, but wouldn't feed them for your reasons exactly. Also, bees travel up to 2 miles to find food sources so there's no way to know if all those people are abstaining from pesticides.

 

[elizaann2]

I'm a bee-keeper also and when I first realized that wax moths in the hives were THOSE wax moths I was excited, but wouldn't feed them for your reasons exactly. Also, bees travel up to 2 miles to find food sources so there's no way to know if all those people are abstaining from pesticides.

Oh that is so cool! Bees are so fascinating. We are getting ready to harvest our honey here in the next month or so.

Thank you for your input. I was really excited when we found them all but in the end we destroyed them when cleaning out those extra hives we had sitting around. I felt bad..

 

[absolutbill]

We've been keeping for a little over a year and have harvested honey twice. However we're in FL, so our nectar flows are a little different. We have another super that can be spun, probably next week, and we're guessing it will yield about 15-20 lbs. And we have Brazillian peppers (which are invasive) which will have a flow in the fall so we're hoping to get even more then. We currently have 2 nukes and 4 full-sized boxes.

 

[elizaann2]

We've been keeping for a little over a year and have harvested honey twice. However we're in FL, so our nectar flows are a little different. We have another super that can be spun, probably next week, and we're guessing it will yield about 15-20 lbs. And we have Brazillian peppers (which are invasive) which will have a flow in the fall so we're hoping to get even more then. We currently have 2 nukes and 4 full-sized boxes.

Oh wow that is incredible. We had 9 hives last year but we had such a harsh long winter last year (we are in Utah) that all of them died despite our best efforts, except for 1 hive. It was weaker the beginning of the spring but at this point it's strong. We have since split the hive so we now officially have 2 at this point. We aren't expecting a lot of honey this year unfortunately.