I have a medium super with frames that were about 50% capped at the end of last summer's flow. I left it on the hive for winter for extra space and food stores due to a fairly large colony going into fall. I did some fall feeding including HBH and Fumagilin with the super on so I have to assume that some of those were stored in the super.
If I uncap and spin out whatever is left in those frames this spring, can I use them to harvest honey for human consumption or should I only use them for the bees now? The super was not on for any other kind of chemical mite treatment.
I doubt HBH would be a problem at all. My understanding is that fumigillin breaks down quickly, and the amounts of it that would be around after you extracted would be slim or none.
If you use them as early spring feed for the bees, they'll build up much more quickly and will produce you more new honey earlier in the year than normally.
That was my plan--to leave the super on the hive as feed and take it off at the point (as close as I can) when the bees stop consuming from inside the hive and start bringing in what they need. Even if I catch that perfectly I imagine that there will be capped cells that may contain syrup/HBH. I will open those cells and spin them to make sure the honey I harvest later in the year is a "pure" as possible.
That is what I would do too, in a nice day in 2 weeks put the supper under the broad chamber, you can scratch some of the honey on the supper, reduce the entrance. The bees will move the honey up and use as feed and you will have an empty supper for your honey flow. It is called bottom feeding.
Good luck Gilman
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