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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

There's always a silver lining....

The wax moth isn't a creature you want to find in your bee hive. Usually the wax moth takes advantage of a weak hive and suddenly the frames are a mess of yuck. I never have thought of the wax moth as having positive properties.



I'm training for the Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk in Atlanta in October. The walk itself includes three consecutive days in October, walking 20 miles each day. The training is vigorous, with the mileage increasing each weekend as we are now 15 weeks from the event. Today I had to walk 8 miles.

To make the miles less boring, I bought an IPod and download NPR podcasts and audio books to keep my mind off of the long distance. One of the podcasts I listened to today was NPR's Hearing Voices.

Imagine my surprise when one of the topics in a feature called Bugs and Birds was about the music made by wax moths!

A man actually cultivated the wax moths because of the high-pitched music they make after dark and he figured out how to record this. It is, I must say, quite beautiful. Who knew there was value to such a messy creature?

So now if I find a wax moth infestation in any of my hives, I'm going to try to remember their musical talent!
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:38 PM

    Wax moths are also very valuable to the feral bee population. When a feral colony dies out, the wax moths destroy the now unused comb, so as not to allow any diseases that may have been present to spread.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Best of luck with your Breast Cancer 3-Day training!

    We'd like to invite you to join the official Breast Cancer 3-Day Flickr group, YouTube channel, Facebook fan page or MySpace page to share photos, videos and stories while you're training and after the event.

    ReplyDelete

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