EMERGENCY Worms inside Bottom of flow frame

What do I do??? They are small and I killed some. What should I do??? Please help.


I think they’re small hive beetle larvae. Go in first thing tomorrow and inspect, and bring a helper if you can. If you’re lucky, they might be isolated to a frame or two and you can clean them up and get the SHB infestation under control. If it’s not a lot of them you could get the job done with an assortment of wipes, Qtips etc and a vinegar water spray bottle and clean up as you go. You will probably have to remove the super to give the colony some time to get the upper hand again - there are usually some SHB inside any hive, but a strong population of bees has enough workers to spare to act as jailers, who keep the beetles from mating and laying eggs everywhere.

My fingers are crossed for this to be a minor incident and not a slimeout! :crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers:

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Heh, I just left for a business trip but I’ll be back in 48 hours. My hive is very healthy, even seems a little overpopulated still, even with 3 boxes. My concern is that the worms are in the trench under the flow comb ( where the honey flows out). The bees cannot get in there as far as I know.

I’ve seen them carry out worms before (months ago) and they even mummified a big worm, that was too heavy to carry, with propolis.

Another thought, they have been filling the flow comb with early honey, very watery and thin, as is the process of making honey. The cell were getting fuller but now seem to have decreased some. I also noticed the bottom of one of the flow frames has watery honey, even though I’ve never harvested it yet. It’s not much, but enough for it to flow out and make a dime size circle of honey. I am positive all the segments of the frame are in the right position. Interesting enough, this is not one of the 2 frames where I saw the worms.

I agree with @Eva . Get onto it asap.

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Seeing SHB larvae in the honey trough like this is likely a sign that a SHB was trapped in a lower cell by bees and out of desperation it laid eggs in the gap between the cells which then emerged in the honey trough, essentially they are trapped inside, they might survive on some nectar residue, but they cant spread to the comb from in this prison. As others have said the bees might be fending off a few SHB and it is often easier to guard a cell and push the SHB back inside whenever it tries to emerge then risking letting it loose in the hive. Have the bees used the Flow Frames yet or are they active in the Flow Super?

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Thanks that is helpful. I purchased a gun cleaning kit, and my wife and daughter cleaned out the tube with a soft cloth and a long metal rod.

I have seen small hive beetles in other parts of the hive, and they just keep them prisoner as always. I found six of them on the bottom board the other day, but that means that the bees pushed them out and they fell down. I simply just smashed them all and emptied the board.

The flow super is completely covered in bees, and nonstop activity. However, as I said, they filled up cells with very thin pre-honey, but I keep seeing the levels go up and back down.

I do have one single frame that has only two columns that are misaligned. I have been meaning to fix it, but I don’t know how to do that without spilling all the thin honey that’s already in there. They have not capped any of the cells. There are bees in the trough Of that frame, however that is not the frame where I found the worms.

Oh I see what you mean, you might be able to flex the clear end off just enough for the moving blade to pop back in place. Just keep an eye out if it still bends that way it might have been stretched, in which case shoot faults@honeyflow.com an email.

So it turns out sealing the gaps around the flow frames was a bad idea. The stuff I had collected was a variety of propolis and burr comb. See Gap Between Flow Frames and Metal Strip on box . So it attracted what seems to be wax moth worms.

I removed most of it with my hive tool and torched (VERY QUICKLY) the outside of the flow frames, where they meet the wood of the box. You need to be very careful to not melt the plastic. This is probably terrible advice, so don’t do it. I would not do it again, I just panicked and didn’t know what else to do to kill all the microscopic worms.

I added some more foam gasket around the front cover and put the hive on 8 adjustable feet submerged in vegetable oil to stop the ants.

There are still some straggler worms, but I have been checking every day and killing 1 or 2 each time I go out. I did a hive inspection yesterday and all is well. I actually harvested my VERY FIRST frame of honey, from the middle super, the old fashioned way. I am still waiting for my Flow Hive to fill up. They seem to be moving very slowly, from back to front, but there is progress nonetheless. It probably has about 30 pounds of honey in it, just scattered across all 6 frames, all partially completed.

Hi Brandon, I’m pleased to read that you got your very first honey, even though it was “the old fashioned way”. There’s something special about the very first honey out of our first hive.

I’m guessing that you used a spinner (2 frame). Did you use a counterweight to stop the spinner from wobbling? I extract the “old fashioned way”, & I’m always pleased to discover an even number of frames during my harvest. If not, I keep the lightest one till last.

Hah, even more old fashioned:

A spatula and colander :sweat_smile:

64 ounces of honey from 1 frame:

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Hi Brandon, you have my sympathies for the wax moth nightmare! Hope it stays under control :crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers:

That frame in the background has some lovely dark honey, what from do you think?

I think it is because the wax was super dark. All of the honey in that 1 frame is in the 8 jars in the other picture. What was cool is that different sections that I extracted had different colors. This frame was full back in May and was super light but I waited until July to harvest ( not intentionally).
To me, it has an intense orange flavor. Our region of Texas has pretty brutal summers, but spring is very pleasant and has tons of wildflowers, which I let grow on my property till they died in the summer. I think we have mostly clover right now for the summer flowers.
I need learn more about flowers :blush:

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