Despite clearing out so many cocoons last autumn we’re still finding that the odd bee moth is emerging from some hidden corner or another. We’ve had no more than half a dozen appear fluttering around the living room in the last month but recently they’ve been mainly the males so today when I found a female I took a closer look. When I spotted her by the back door, my first thought was that I’d found a snout moth because of the prominent palps projecting at the front, which the male lacks.
Bee moths, Aphomia sociella, feed on old cells and debris in the nests of bumble bees and wasps. Last summer we had literally thousands emerge via cracks in the floor when we had a bumble bees’ nest behind the air brick at the front of the house. They pupated, spinning tough sticky silken cocoons, often bunched together, in every dry, dark corner they could find. We ended up buying a new carpet!
Link: Bee moths make their first appearance in May last year.
