A Sad State Of Affairs

I checked on my beehives Saturday.  The first time I've had time to check on them since late April.  The last time I peeked in the hives, all five were doing ok and making honey.  In every beeyard, there are always hives that are stronger than others and I had a couple that I knew were weaker.  Still, I thought that I could leave them to do what they know how to do best.  Wrong answer!  I found two dead hives when I visited the bee yard on Saturday.  No bees.  No honey.  No wax.  Here is what I found in both hives.

Wax Moth infestation in both hives.  This is a severe infestation where the developing moths are growing across the entire length of the frame.  Wax moths larvae eat the wax and they leave behind a webbing that is difficult to remove.  The bottom board in the background is covered in larvae droppings and insect litter.  I was so surprised to see how fast the moths had taken over both hives.

Here's a close up of the larvae casings.  Yep, there's developing moths in those little cocoons.  I brought both hives home to see what could be salvaged.  If there's a bright side to this sad sight....the songbirds were treated to a feast of lots of larvae - just free for the taking!  I have a family of House Wrens that hang around my house and they eagerly gobbled them up.  My own little clean up crew.  :)

I was able to salvage the hive bodies and some of the frames, but I had to throw away the more heavily damaged frames.  This sight just makes me sick.  One of these hives was one of my original two hives from 2006. 

I inspected the three remaining hives and found that two were really strong and had about 85% of a super filled with honey.  The third hive is struggling with fewer bees and not even a whole frame of honey.  I pulled a couple of frames of honey from the stronger hives and left them with the weaker hive to hold them over until I can figure out a more permanent fix. 

I've got a few options to go with.

1. I can kill the queen in the weak hive and join the bees from that hive to one of my stronger hives to create an even stronger hive.
2. I could feed the hive and nurse it along and hope the queen is stimulated to start laying again.
3. I can create a double queen hive. 

I've been researching the double queen colony system and I'm leaning in that direction.  With two queens in the same hive, there are twice as many workers - more nurse bees to tend the brood, more field workers to gather nectar and pollen.  Also, if one of the queens dies, the hive will still have a queen for uninterrupted brood production.  This double queen hive is very interesting and I think I'm going to give this one a try.  The reason being, I can still access the brood boxes easily and it seems more stable than a very tall hive configuration such as this one.

I'm concerned about the bees having enough honey going into the fall and winter and I want to make sure the hives are healthy and ready for the fall blooms.  Every year since I've been keeping bees, I've always harvested honey, but had to feed sugar syrup during the winter.  Honey is the best food for them, of course, but I've been a bit too greedy so this year I've decided to let the bees have all the honey in hopes that I've have really strong hives going into the spring 2012 season.  Healthier hives=more honey production.  At least that's the idea. 

Now I've got to figure out the logistics of combining the two hives in this fashion.  I'll post the details of how I do it once I figure it out myself.  I've got to act fast so I'll be putting it together this week.  Wish me luck!