Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: flyboy on March 14, 2016, 03:00:32 PM

Title: Storing used frames
Post by: flyboy on March 14, 2016, 03:00:32 PM
I had a bit of misfortune in that I lost my 3 moves this winter. It appears to be water damage and I take full responsibility and will be building more substantial hives this year and making a water shelter for the hives because of the normal massive amount of rain we get all winter. They had lots of food in the form of stored honey.

In the meantime I am wondering what to do with the frames. I have extracted the honey from them and was going to store them. Any ideas on the way to do it, or the advisability, as I plan to take this year off from beeking and go at it again next year when I am properly set up.
Title: Re: Storing used frames
Post by: Michael Bush on March 14, 2016, 03:18:29 PM
Keep the mice out and they will be fine until spring has sprung.  The only issue later will be wax moths.  Freezing will keep them indefinitely.
Title: Re: Storing used frames
Post by: GSF on March 14, 2016, 03:31:35 PM
We had a warm winter for the most part. I used the Para moth crystals. I placed the bottom super on several sheets of newspaper, then I stacked 5 or 6 supers on it, placed the crystals on index cards on top of the supers and sealed the top about the same way I did the bottom. Putting newspaper on top of the top super and a piece of plywood on top of the newspaper. Make sure it's the crystals that are bee/human friendly.
Title: Re: Storing used frames
Post by: Michael Bush on March 15, 2016, 09:15:52 AM
>Make sure it's the crystals that are bee/human friendly.

There is no such thing.  But the PDB is at least approved, despite being a carcinogen and despite leaving residue in the wax and later in the honey...

PDB aka 1,4-Dichlorobenzene ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%2C4-Dichlorobenzene )

https://www.baselland.ch/fileadmin/baselland/files/docs/vsd/labor/aktuell/publ/rueckstaende-in-honig.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16699520
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4612-3922-2_5#page-1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12748734

Info on wax moths:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#waxmoths
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeswaxmoths.htm