Beetles, moths, bears and pesticides

It's November. Anne goes out to her shed to check the honey supers she stored after harvest, and finds a mess. Silky webbing between the frames. Tunnels chewed through the comb. Fat grey caterpillars and a scatter of droppings. Her beautiful drawn comb is ruined. This is wax moth, and it happened in the shed, not in the hive.

This lecture is about the problems that come from outside the hive: beetles, moths, big animals and pesticides.

Start with wax moth. The larvae feed on the impurities in old comb, so dark brood comb suffers most. Wax moth doesn't kill strong colonies; the bees keep it in check. The damage happens in stored equipment and in weak or dead colonies. So store comb where moths can't get at it, and don't leave uneaten pollen patties behind, because they attract them.

Small hive beetle is a newer arrival. It was first found in southern Ontario in twenty ten. The larvae tunnel through the comb and ferment the honey into a slimy mess, then crawl out to pupate in the soil near the hive. In Ontario it's a reportable pest. There is no registered chemical treatment, so keep colonies strong, use traps, and extract honey promptly after you take it off.

Two more facts about the beetle. Adults can survive up to six months and fly ten kilometres or more, so they find hives on their own. And in Ontario, comb honey damaged by small hive beetle or wax moth may not be sold.

Then the big animals. Bears are more common in northern and forested parts of the province, and one visit can wreck a bee yard. Raccoons and skunks are smaller nuisances. Ontario has a program that can compensate for some wildlife damage. And watch the news for the northern giant hornet, an invasive predator on the ministry's list of pests of concern.

Finally, pesticides. Ontario law forbids spraying fruit trees in bloom with anything poisonous to bees. Health Canada has linked high bee deaths to dust from planting treated corn and soybean seed. Know what's farmed around your hives.

The signs of acute poisoning are sudden. Many dead and dying bees in front of the hive within a day, a sharp drop in the population, bees trembling or unable to fly, sometimes a wet, sticky mass of bees.

Now let's change one fact. Suppose Anne finds that pile of dying bees at the entrance on a warm day in May, while the neighbouring farm is planting. She should collect a sample straight away, about three hundred and fifty bees, in a clean container, and freeze it. Then report it: to the province's Spills Action Centre, and to Health Canada's pesticide incident line. The numbers are on this lecture's card.

The mistake beginners make is leaving equipment unprotected, and leaving dead colonies in the yard. Stored comb feeds wax moths, and an abandoned hive feeds beetles and robbers.

Here is the rule, in one breath. Protect stored comb from wax moth, keep colonies strong against small hive beetle and report it, fence or site your hives with bears in mind, and if bees die suddenly, collect and freeze a sample and report it right away.

That's the end of module seven. Next, swarms and queens.