Following Extraction

[Ron Young]

Ok,
Both of my hives ended up without brood for a while. One swarmed several times 3-4. The other swarmed once, and ended up queenless. Both are now queen-right, but have very little brood room. I do not use queen-excluders, and do not have any.

Once I extracted the honey yesterday, I sat the suppers out to be cleaned up. Some bees were quick to find it, and they started to move the honey and clean up the suppers. I did not want to put the suppers on the hive, as I feared that queen would take up abode in the honey suppers and start laying eggs.

Today, I have a swarm of bees in the honey suppers. All seems quiet around the hives (no signs of robbing). But the suppers, and the tray of cappings are covered with bees.

Is this OK? (as long as they are away from the hives, and no robbing is evident at the hives?)

[Kurt Bower]

Ron:

The practice of allowing the bees to clean the honey supers outside of the hive is a common practice.
You are right to be concerned about robbing, but this is unlikely if the hives are strong.
The only concern is if any of your hives have American Foulbrood. By allowing the clean up, the bees would then take the tainted honey back to their respective hives and each hive would catch AFB.
Some prefer to put the same boxes back on the same hives above a queen excluder in order to eliminate this problem.
The swarming of bees will die down just as soon as they have removed all the honey.

Kurt

[Ron Young]

I think I will invest in some queen excluders for this occasion. I have interchanged some frames from one hive to the queenless hive anyway, so the only risk would be to neighboring bees.
When you use queen excluders, do they readily clean up the honey, or do they start moving it into center frames, and start filling the suppers back?

[Wally]

Like Kurt says, it's a common practice. With only two or three hives, it's the thing you should be doing. Once more, quit worrying and let the bees do what bees do. If you had fifty hives, it may be different, but you don't, so continue as you are.

[Kurt Bower]

Actually, now that I think of it, there is another way.
You can put the inner cover on the hive and then the supers. The queen will not move up and the bees will bring the honey down into the brood chamber for storage.
At least that's what THEY say. WHo is they anyway?

[Ron Young]

They is them isn't it?

Just out of curiosity, in the event that I ever have a good year, no swarms, good honey flow, and great harvest, what is required to sell honey? (not that all these things will happen).

[Kurt Bower]

No swarms! Now I want a year like that!
As for selling honey, there are no special requirements. You can sell to any individual at any price you see fit.
Now as for selling at the farmers market there are some hoops to jump through. Paperwork and perhaps an inspection. Bruce Loving recently went through this and perhaps he will add his comments.

[Ron Young]

What to do with medium frames that were overwintered on the hive. Some of them had brood raised in the bottom half, and they have some cells that contain pollen.

Should I remove this and start fresh next spring with foundation? If not, what will keep the wax moths out?

[Kurt Bower]

Without a doubt, wax moths will be attracted to comb that has pollen in it and has been used to raise brood.
I am a purist and use no treament for my comb. I alternately stack my supers outside under a lean-to. The supers have a constant flow of air and light. This keeps out the majority of moths. You still will have the occasional wax worm but the destruction is minimal in comparison to storing them in the dark. You can also consider paramoth crystals or Certan.
If I wasn't leaving my supers outside I think I would use Certan.