Urgent - Are these Wax Moth?

Pests and Diseases
1

Hello all, I’m from Vic, Australia.

Bit of background:
Recently I have had some odd occurances with my bees. They are a first year hive, going well. Like many, I put the super on for the first time mid-September (Flowhive btw). On my first inspection of Springtime I noticed some Hive Beetles wandering about, only around 2 of them on the comb, so I squished them. I put my baseboard on the lower setting and installed a Hive Beetle Trap.

This made a gap on the back of the hive. Since then the Hive Beetles have died out, but now because of the gap my bees have been getting visitors. A cockaroach like beetle and a slug have managed to make there way in and sit on the baseboard.

And this morning I found this:

248975391_1286098551804275_4465741230185625363_n
248975391_1286098551804275_4465741230185625363_n1536×2048 416 KB

247335579_874772513225394_6187611275314831388_n
247335579_874772513225394_6187611275314831388_n1536×2048 471 KB

Looking on the internet they seem to be Wax Moth, but I might hear from you guys as well. I have not had any issues with them prior to chaning my baseboard height, since the only othere entrance was the front. I destroyed these guys and inserted it back in.

To add to the weirdness, my bees as of around 4 days ago have stopped entering the super for some reason, I don’t know if it is due to these guys or what. Last week I looked in the side window to see hundreds of bees working on the super and now only around 5. It’s almost as if the population dropped or something like that. We have had lots of warm weather and there is lots of activity out on the landing board.
In any case:

Are these wax moths?

What can I do to prevent them?

Should I close my baseboard?

What happened to my bees in the super?

Thanks, Tom

2

Hi Tom, I’m wondering now if your colony has swarmed, seeing as you have had lots of warm weather.

Yes they look like wax moth larvae to me. I don’t think they are anything to worry about & they certainly wouldn’t be the reason why the bees left the flow super. My money would be on the likelihood that your colony swarmed.

3

Hmm, that is very odd. They had barely touched the super. I was looking at them 3-4 times a day and didn’t see any signs, I will inspect them now

4

I was going to suggest yesterday that you lift the roof & crown board to look down over the frames, so you get a better idea of what’s going on up there, because I wouldn’t rely solely on the viewing window as a guide.

5

Thanks for your insight so far Jeff. I just did an short inspection. It appears they are okay. The bees are in the super and filling out the inner frames. It is just odd since I saw many near the window, it’s almost like they all spread out now.

Apart from that the only odd thing I saw was a bit of commotion out the front with a number of drones flying off, should I be worried about that? around 4 I saw.

6

Hi Tom, being early afternoon, you should see a lot of bees doing orientation flights. The drones are probably heading of to a DCA {drone congregation area), where they’ll hopefully mate with a virgin queen.