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This is more of a rant than anything . . . we went out to check a hive the other day (it had been a couple of weeks, and above 100 fahrenheit here) and it was

ABSOLUTELY

TOTALLY

infested with wax moth larvae. Humongous bummer--we had to freeze all of the honey frames, and lost the brood (froze those frames too), and the wax was a complete webby mess. So we came out with some honey still OK, at least. But probably the biggest disappointment was that after we did all that--including scraping off the larvae and stomping on them--I went online to look them up, and found out that wax moth larvae are supposed to be really yummy to eat!! Deep-fried, they're supposed to taste like bacon, and I imagine they'd be a little honey-sweet, too. Doesn't that sound delicious? Has anyone ever eaten these, or insects of any sort? I'm sorry to admit that I've been too timid to ever eat insects (intentionally.)

Oh, and when we were sacking up the honey frames to put them in the deep freeze, the bees were as perturbed as I've ever seen them. They knew we were taking their food away!

Arghhh! No, thanks. Shudder...

Meant to say - sorry to hear you lost a hive. Is it only the one you have? In that case it would be a disaster...

I'm a veggie, and I'm sure the definition extends to invertebrates!

Wax moth is a problem over here too, but so far not completely out of hand more of a nusience(sp?)

Apparently a story about my son at school has managed to get carried into the american bee press....you haven't read about a young boy called Callum writing a play about bees at school have you? The regional bee press picked it up here- and its ended up in Ireland, California, Texas and Utah! bizarre world beekepers live in !

kind thoughts
Deb

I tried green ants' abdomens in Australia and they taste lemony as they are full of vitamin C.

That's as far as I go with the insect eating though! Witchetty grub anyone?

Haven't tried any yet, except the odd inadvertant cabbage moth caterpillar. Might give it a go under the right circumstance........

Have found, but not eated the witchety grubs......

Nev

Wombat wrote:Haven't tried any yet, except the odd inadvertant cabbage moth caterpillar. Might give it a go under the right circumstance........

Nev - you old boozehound!

I must have hoovered up plenty spiders an flies in my time - I sleep with my trap open

Wombat wrote:Have found, but not eated the witchety grubs......

Nev

Ina--no, it was one of four. And that's not a bad ration here, considering that we haven't had an problems with the colony collapse disorder. And we're extracting honey from the other three tonight, so I'll report back on the harvest!

Deb--haven't heard of that story, though I'm sure in the Southwest US, with the Africanized bees swarming everywhere, that it may be a real fear!

Those ants' abdomens sound tasty.

Er . . . what's a witchety grub?

We get grugs like that here, but we call the huhu grubs. The beetle grows humongous and can fly. Some of the beetles can grow up to 75-80mm long and about 15mm in diameter. And yes I have eaten the grubs fried in butter.

Robin

Ah ha - so those veg you were talking about with Possum that looked like a huhu grub then are a strange veg I have never tried that is grown and sold here in France called Crosne! I can't be bothered with peeling hundreds of little grub shaped roots!

Is this them? Latin name: Stachys tuberifera, Stachys affinis

And we affectionately call these Witchetty Grubs!



Sadly, after this magnificent speciment (found in the compost) was fed to the hens, I have since found that it is not the dreaded Cockchafer Grub but a good and harmless beetle grub which is very similar.

HOLY COW, those grubs are big! I've seen videos of them being eaten. Wow!

We get the Japanese beetle grubs, which look like yours, Millymollymandy, only much smaller. The chickens go bonkers for them!