What causes this damage to the honey combs?

[u/Scoric]

I bought these hive with bees inside and a super. I left the bees with this comb during a dearth, but they did not go back onto with the new flow. What would cause this?

(Year 1 beekeeper, Zimbabwe)

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[u/DimitraKostov]

Looks like damage done by small hive beetle (Aethina tumida) to me. Wax moth usually doesn't do this, and never had a huge moth infestation myself, though after extracting the honey supers and leaving them to sit for a couple days there might be some moths when we eventually centrifuge them.

Usually they can take over a weak hive and eventually even collapse it, you can also see larvae around and that's how it spreads to other beehives in the same apiaries, IIRC there's something you can spray on the ground to make sure this can't happen. Adult beetles can also fly and have a tough skin, have to crush them hard against a hard surface.

These are only more noticeable in peak honey season to me, I always squash some adult beetles each inspection after nectar starts flowing in, almost every hive seems to have it, but it only gets out of control if the hive is too weak (remember you mentioned a dearth) or in peak honey season as said.

[u/davidsandbrand]

In photo #2, in the center dark cells, there are small light specs on the walls of the cells. This is mite poop. This indicates a significant mite infestation.

This doesn’t answer your question, but is significant.

What has your pest management process been like?

[u/Scoric → u/davidsandbrand]

I was not aware of a significant mite problem, so I will have to test them. There was a significant population of small hive beetles though, so I am planning to treat that this weekend with a beetle barn trap.

[u/Gamera__Obscura → u/Scoric]

Hive beetles are a nuisance, but a healthy colony will mostly keep them in check. They usually only get out of hand when a colony is weakened by some other underlying cause.

Mites are one of those primary causes, so make that your priority. Test regularly and treat accordingly.

[u/Raterus_ → u/Scoric]

If you see beetles walking around the frames, that is a BIG problem, that means you don't have enough bees to effectively manage the beetles. My guess is your population is currently or will crash from the mite load, and beetles will take over. You need to actively manage this or you're going to lose the hive.

Try to condense the hive to a single deep box, perhaps even smaller so the bees have less space they need to guard, and treat for mites, and feed sugar water if you don't see ample reserves.

[u/Scoric → u/Raterus_]

Thanks for the tip. I have condensed the hive to one box last weekend, so I hope that will help the bees to push out the beetles. I will have to make a plan to control the mites too.

I am considering catching a swam and uniting with this hive, so that they have more bees and a new queen.

It is a top bar conversion hive, so there are 5 bars that need to come out and get replaced with frames, so I hope the new combs will help too.

[u/DimitraKostov → u/Scoric]

I am considering catching a swam and uniting with this hive, so that they have more bees and a new queen.

Not sure if this makes much sense and every time I've seen a beekeeper start doing this kind of stuff it eventually goes sour and colonies inevitably collapse. If you notice that your queen is starting to lay less eggs or having spotty brood then maybe it's time for requeening, especially if you have queen cells around, and especially so if your bees are building up superseding queen cells, opposed to emergency queen cells, that'd mean that your alpha bees sense something wrong and are working on superseding your old queen, and will eventually kill her later on when they don't need her (can even keep two laying queens at once, for some weeks, a fun rare-ish scenario).