An Infestation, You Say?

I thought it was the smoke from forest fires that caused the 100+ moths to appear in one room of our house a couple days ago - because, why not blame a home invasion on something that is already invading your home, your eyes, your lungs?  

Normally we always take any bug “visitors” and put them outside as there’s no need to kill a bug that can easily be moved outside, right?  Different times call for different measures.   With two days of obsessively vacuuming those little flying-roaches, I thought I had removed just about the whole tribe.

Shifting gears...

As Dan and I are commiserating about the smoke and fires, we decide it's time to peak in on our bee hives and see how the bees are behaving.  I head to the “moth” room in the house to gather our bee gear and as I pull down our gloves, I notice a few moths drop off.  Then a few more start swarming my face.  And then I gulp.

Our bee-keeping attire was resting on top of a honey super with eight frames of capped honey from last year we were saving (why?  I don’t remember...)   So, guess where the moths were?  Yep.    A moth came shooting out of the hive, into my hair. I didn’t even bother to look inside the bee box, rather I went to gather Dan for what I was sure would give me major heebie-jeebies.  

We moved the honey frames and box to the back porch and as we pulled out the first frame of honey, I began to pray.  But I was too late.  Honey Armegedon had arrived.  And the anti-Christ had wings.

All of the honey frames were covered in moth poop.  Yes, moths poop.  And there were at least a million of them in various stages - eggs, maggoty-like-worm, cacoons, flying demons.  Dan begins to say “maybe we could save....”  and I jump to “dump it in the garbage!!!”   And the rest is history.

Well, hopefully.  

After a mad-cleaning frenzie, I head to the internet and decided to let Google school me on moths.  What I learned is that our little inconvenient moth mess actually could have been the straw that broke our little hive's back last year.

By the end of last summer, after our bees appeared to be flourishing, each of the three hives disappeared, one-by-one. We thought maybe we had Zombees or the yellow jackets had been too fierce and wore them down.  Then we were sure the bees were poisoned by neighbors who spray toxic chemicals on everything that grows.  We had no idea that there was such a thing as a wax moth and this nemesis could work hand-in-hand with any of the above and evict a whole hive. If you’re curious, check out this link to read more about the unwelcomed visitors to Kittleson Family Farm.

Poor honey bees!  It’s coming at them from all angles!!!   And all they want to do is help feed the world and spread some sweetness.