I had two boxes of deeps with drawn out frames that had some nectar and some capped honey. I wanted to clean them out, so I put them on top of my inner cover on two strong hives hoping the bees would clean them up. Instead both hives started using the frames and storing nectar.
Would this technique work better at a different time of year...like after the flow? How do you clean up old frames like these that you would like to store for later use? Last year I put some about 70 feet away from my hives and I believe it caused robbing of the hives. I'm just a backyard beekeeper so I can't put frames over 100 feet away on my property.
I like to store frames in the house in my bee room sealed in garbage bags and taped up. But I was hesitant to bag frames with some nectar or honey on them.
Frame Cleaning/Storage
Re: Frame Cleaning/Storage
There is still a bit of a flow going on at my house so that bees have shown some interest in wet frames, but have not gone crazy over them. They will clean them out when there is a dearth, but it may trigger robbing. One option may be to put them out within an hour or so of sundown. If it triggers robbing, the time for mischief will be limited. You may also want to have entrance or robber screens available to help you colonies defend. Chest freezers are great for storing frames with honey, nectar or pollen. Even if you don't have that available, you will want to run your frames through a freezer to kill wax moth and SHB eggs/larvae. If you don't take care of these pests before storing frames in garbage bags, you will unbag a real mess.
If frames are cleaned out and dry, I'll use the BT Certan (Dipel is NOT effective) to protect against wax moths. BT will not work if the frames are wet with honey and will not protect comb that has pollen in it. If I don't have freezer space and have frames with pollen in them, I'll run them through the freezer and store them in supers with Paramoth according to the instructions that come with it. The pollen won't be good when I go to use them again but wax moths won't destroy the comb and the bees will clean out the bad pollen.
If frames are cleaned out and dry, I'll use the BT Certan (Dipel is NOT effective) to protect against wax moths. BT will not work if the frames are wet with honey and will not protect comb that has pollen in it. If I don't have freezer space and have frames with pollen in them, I'll run them through the freezer and store them in supers with Paramoth according to the instructions that come with it. The pollen won't be good when I go to use them again but wax moths won't destroy the comb and the bees will clean out the bad pollen.