Small quick moving grub in drone cell - any ideas?]

[Gilberdyke John]

I took two supers off today after inserting rhombus clearing boards yesterday. In one there were was a seam of bees which I brushed out back into the hive and discovered a patch of capped drone brood so no great surprise some bees didn't clear. Leaving the frame with brood till last I dug it out back to the foundation whereupon I saw movement on the exposed foundation wax. It was a very tiny pale grub about 3 mm long, about half a mm thick wriggling quickly and vanished into the mushed drone tissue which I discarded.
When I finished operations I started wondering what it had been. As it was in/under a drone cell I considered part of varroa life cycle but google doesn't show any images of varroa having a larval stage. Highly unlikely to be a bee grub as the remainder of the clump was capped and the grubs within at almost fully formed stage of development. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

young waxmoth larva

 

[Apiarisnt]

young waxmoth larva

or if you want to be doubly sure, then for only £1.74: Live Wax Moth Larvae WaxWorms 15g (Galleria mellonella)

 

[Gilberdyke John]

young waxmoth larva

You could well be correct with that diagnosis. Given more time I would have tried to isolate the grub but I was in the course of loading the extractor.I did wonder about wax moth but the super contained only this year's frames and foundation which seemed unlikely to attract the attention of a moth especially as the brood box below hasn't any indication of wax moth tunnels. I'll keep an eye out for any tunnels developing or other signs.

 

[pargyle]

Lesser Wax moth .... unusual to get them in supers ... is it a small colony ... have you checked the brood frames for signs of track marks/webs ... look particularly at outer frames that are not in use ... where there's one there is inevitably more. A strong colony will usually sort them so I'd be worrying about the strength of the colony ...

How many supers did you have on the hive - was this the top one ?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Lesser Wax moth .... unusual to get them in supers ... is it a small colony ... have you checked the brood frames for signs of track marks/webs ... look particularly at outer frames that are not in use ... where there's one there is inevitably more. A strong colony will usually sort them so I'd be worrying about the strength of the colony ...

How many supers did you have on the hive - was this the top one ?

No signs of tunnels at the previous inspection a day earlier (the time I put the clearer board on) it was the top super of two so probably the drone brood patch was down to worker eggs and being distant from the queen pheromones. The colony is strong all 14x12 brood frames in use with brood and the end frames contain stores. As previously I really didn't expect wax moth in a newly drawn super but sh*t happens in the world of beekeeping.

 

[Kirbygrip]

I took two supers off today after inserting rhombus clearing boards yesterday. In one there were was a seam of bees which I brushed out back into the hive and discovered a patch of capped drone brood so no great surprise some bees didn't clear. Leaving the frame with brood till last I dug it out back to the foundation whereupon I saw movement on the exposed foundation wax. It was a very tiny pale grub about 3 mm long, about half a mm thick wriggling quickly and vanished into the mushed drone tissue which I discarded.
When I finished operations I started wondering what it had been. As it was in/under a drone cell I considered part of varroa life cycle but google doesn't show any images of varroa having a larval stage. Highly unlikely to be a bee grub as the remainder of the clump was capped and the grubs within at almost fully formed stage of development. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

But how did the drone brood get in the super. Was there no QX or was it a laying worker in a Queen right colony??

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

was it a laying worker in a Queen right colony??

All queenright colonies have laying workers, jit's just the other bees police it, but up in the supers they tend to let it slip

 

[Sutty]

As long as it wasn't a small hive beetle larva!...........