Many beekeepers are dismayed to find a whitish coating on their beeswax. The powdery substance may occur on blocks of rendered beeswax and candles, or it may arise on foundation, stored combs, or on honeycomb cappings. Sometimes it is snow white, and at other times it appears faintly purple or mauve. Beekeepers wonder if the […] Read more
It is early spring and your beehive seems too quiet. You pop the lid only to find mold everywhere. It cloaks dead bees in furry coats, pillows above the bars, and drifts down between the frames. It covers the surface of combs and binds the masses of dead bees together in a smelly mat. There […] Read more
Mold seems to be the topic of the week, but that is not surprising. This is the time of year when you open a hive that has overwintered with little interference from you. What you find in there is not gleaming combs of honey and pollen, but empty cells rimed with white, green, blue, or […] Read more
A few years ago a beekeeper friend announced to me that mold had taken over her hives and killed all her bees. Now whenever I see moldy combs—or even hear about it—I think about her. When I tried to explain that it was the other way around, that the bees died and then the mold […] Read more
A reader asked this question yesterday and I thought it was worth writing about. Sugar syrup will mold very quickly, especially in the physical conditions of the hive. A white, fluffy growth may be seen in just a few days. A small amount of mold doesn’t seem to bother the bees, but if it gets […] Read more