Lesser wax moth
The lesser wax moth is a small silvery grey moth with a yellow head. It lives wherever honey bees live. Its caterpillars tunnel through old honeycombs and eat them.
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Fun facts
The males sing to the females with sounds too high for people to hear.
The females listen carefully and choose the male with the best song.
The caterpillars spin silk tunnels in the comb, which keep them safe from the bees.
By eating old empty combs, it can clean away places where bee germs hide.
A grown-up moth only lives for about a week.
Most asked questions about Lesser wax moth
?What does a wax moth eat?
Only the caterpillars eat. They munch honeycomb, pollen and honey, and the adults do not eat at all.
?Is the lesser wax moth harmful?
Not to people. It is a pest for beekeepers because it eats the combs.
?How big is a lesser wax moth?
It is about 13 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Achroia grisella
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1794
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Pyralidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pyralidae
- Lives on
- Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Lesser wax moth (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Sarefo. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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