The visit I made with Professor Osamu Tadauchi to see the beehives of Hotaka Tomita on the 13th story rooftop happened a few weeks ago. I thought I would go ahead and post the photos I took and talk about it a little bit.
He is having some problems with his bees. First of all, they are infested by wax moth larvae, so the larvae are causing damage to the combs. I do not know how extensive the damage is, but he is seeing rather large wax moth larvae from time to time and there is quite a bit of refuse being thrown out the front of the hives by his bees.
While we were visiting and observing the bee activity, I could see bees periodically throwing out larvae and pupae (mostly larvae) from the front of the hives. On at least one larva I saw being discarded by a worker bee, there was a black spot on one end of the larva. I am not sure whether it was the mouth end or the anal end. The anal end should not matter so much because larvae do not defecate at all while growing. The adult bee defecates after emerging from the pupa if I am not mistaken. Regardless, the black spot was indicative of a problem or an illness in my mind. I wondered if the problem might not be a disease called Thai sacbrood, but I am not sure. I felt, though, that the bees have a brood disease or some kind of illness. I have not seen that sort of problem or activity in my beehives. Mine appear to be much more healthy. I do not have an answer for what the problem(s) is with his bees, but I definitely think there is quite a serious problem. That is probably why he is having problems with wax moths too. The bees in a healthy strong hive will be able to guard and protect themselves against wax moths. Being infested by wax moth larvae is indicative of some other problem that is weakening the hive so the hive is not strong enough to protect itself.
The other concern I have is that since the hives are completely exposed on the roof of the building and there is no provision for shade, that they may get too hot and that would also be a problem for the bees in a weak hive to be able to cool the hive interior when it is too hot. This is Hotaka’s first year keeping Japanese honey bees so he is an inexperienced beekeeper as of yet. I hope he is able to resolve the problems or at least learn from them and improve the situation.
They are very pretty hives.
They are homemade hives. Mr. Tomita made them himself with the help of a carpenter friend. He made a third one (not pictured) for his younger brother who also wants to keep Japanese honey bees.
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