Stupid Mistakes from the beginner

I am half tempted to rename my blog "Things I have learned the Hard Way" or "Stupid mistakes from the Beginner Beekeeper" or maybe "What not to do when keeping bees". We extracted several frames two weeks ago and I just put the frames in the garage to get them out of the way. I went in this morning to get some equipment and I saw something moving under the comb. Here is what I saw:


It was moving quickly from cell to cell but behind the comb. Whenever I would turn the frame towards the light it would take off trying to get away. I knew what it was instantly and thought that I was doomed. I checked each frame that I had in the garage and some were untouched and some were quite heavily damaged. I should county my blessings here because had I not checked them the damage could have been devastational!! To my surprise I only found four of these little guys:




I really was depressed and did not know what to do. My wife suggested freezing them but I was not sure that would destroy the eggs. I did a little research and found a very helpful formula.

Here is the formula:Freeze your frames 4.5 hours at 20 degrees F, 3 hours at 10 degrees F, 2 hours at 5 degrees F. Measure your freezer temp and decide how long you need to kill them. Freezing the frames will kill all stages of the moth.

I thought this would be an appropriate time to introduce my new favorite beekeeping tool.I can't wait to pick one of these up get it home and put it in the freezer and freeze each frame and be done with my new frenemy the wax worm! Oh and a note to self - listen to your wife.

Time to spin those frames once again!!

We were able to pull 21 Medium frames and 3 shallow frames off of the hives this year. We still have one hive that is a little behind becuase we started them this year but they will also have some to extract. So the calculation so far is from these frames we have 7 gallons of honey! 7! That still seems like quite a bit especially when you see the thick yellow gold collect on the sides of the extractor and it feels like it will be forever to make it to the bottom and to the filter.

I took a look at last years numbers. We did not extract until about the middle of August so it is really hard to compare. I think that this year will be a better year for them if the weather keeps up. Last year we had about two whole supers of uncapped honey. That was fine becuase I fed it to them this year in the spring and I have not fed them ANY SUGAR WATER for 2011 which is very nice. I will try harder to keep track of the total honey extracted for the year and then compare it to last year.