another question-feeding back honey

Kathyp · January 23, 2007, 02:02:44 PM

it's warm today and my hive is a little lite. this is the hive that is forced from 3 boxes to 2 and it's still very full of bees.

when i took the 3rd box off, i put all the frames in the freezer. today i pulled the full and almost full frames out to thaw. some of th frames have uncapped honey. i'd like to feed these back first, but is it ok to put the uncapped stuff back in there now, or should i give them the full, capped frames first.

i'm so confused :-(

Finsky · January 23, 2007, 02:59:28 PM

If you have extra capped frames, don't fill with them valuable room of hive. It stricts the are for brood.

Take care that 2-box hive has equal 2 capped full frame of food on sides when brooding begins.Up to that let them be as they like.

Give more food if they need, but not for fun.

When it is summer and you give to hive third box, then you may give extra honey frames, put them between brood area. Bees clean the honey and lift it to uppermost box as other honey. Break cappings and bees start their work. You may put 2 frames in one time and next day you may spray water on crystals that bees can dilute the honey. I have feeded back some hundreds kilos of crystallized honey. If you do not give water on crystals bees may carry out alot of crystals .

Kathyp · January 23, 2007, 03:19:26 PM

believe me, after the last time, i wasn't going to do it for fun! :-) from what i could see before i ran, they don't have much left in the hive. we still have a lot of winter left. there are still a lot of bees in there. so...they only need two full frames of food to get them through the rest of winter? i'll check and see how they are doing.

i was only going to pull a couple of empty frames from near the sides and replace them with honey frames.

Finsky · January 23, 2007, 03:32:58 PM

Quote from: kathyp on January 23, 2007, 03:19:26 PM
. we still have a lot of winter left.

And long spring, I suppose. I mean that it must be in the hive all the time enough food for bad week. But in spring when colony is small, it is not usefull to feed either sugar nor honey to fill area for brood. You must decide yourself what is enough and good.

Of course you add those honey combs to the hive. Some day you may look into lowest box and you see dark empty combs there. You take them off and give back those honey combs.

2-box hive is allways tight place when it tends to be full of brood and there is food stores too. Third box will help a lot.

Kathyp · January 23, 2007, 03:51:29 PM

thank your for you patient answers!

one last question. on a warm day like today when the bees are flying, can i put those uncapped frames out by the hive to be robbed? there do not seem to be any other bad robbers out there.

Finsky · January 23, 2007, 04:00:58 PM

Quote from: kathyp on January 23, 2007, 03:51:29 PM
can i put those uncapped frames out by the hive to be robbed? there do not seem to be any other bad robbers out there.

That is bad idea. First, you invite robbers to your yard and second, bees break combs totally if you do that. And often your own bees start to rob each other.

If honey has AFB spored, you spread them effectively to every hive and to neighbours too.

Kathyp · January 23, 2007, 05:24:24 PM

ok, i swapped out a couple of frames. i can't believe how many bees are still in there! that makes me happy. i think they will be ok now for the next few weeks. depending on weather, it's about 5 weeks until rhododendrons start blooming, then the fruit trees. if we don't get to much rain (like last year) they should be fat and happy by early march! :-)

Understudy · January 23, 2007, 05:25:13 PM

Finsky,

I find your replies interesting and correct for most cases. I use the permacomb so the bees cannot destroy the comb. Also I have a couple of hives in my yard. Usually after an extraction. I would put the frames out in a box for the bees to take the honey back to the hive. The bees will clean out the frames in a few hours. I then wash them and store them.

I believe that you can remove a few frames of normal foundation / comb and do an extraction and then immeditally return them to the same hive. If the extraction hasn't damaged the comb to badly, then the bees would rebuild and reuse it. I may be wrong here so please do not hesitate to correct me.

I understand putting drone frames in the freezer and then returning them for a mite treatment. I don't store my honey frames in the freezer so I am not familar with doing this. If I pull frames they get extracted. I understand some people will then dillute the honey and put it in a feeder jar on the hive.

I don't want to contridict what you are saying because I believe you are right I am just wondering if there are other alternatives.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

Kathyp · January 23, 2007, 05:48:47 PM

understudy, i had honey frames because i had a 3 deep hive + honey supers. when i forced the bees into the bottom two deeps for winter, i took the frames from the top deep and put them in the freezer. there was capped and uncapped honey. i saved them in case i needed to feed them back, or for a later split....or whatever. since i wasn't exactly sure what to do with them, i put them in the freezer :-)