[Jrod5000]

hello,

I checked my hive yesterday and the bees are gone but I have a LOT of honey left in both supers.
I live in NE and have had a very cold winter. I ordered more bees just in case I lost my hive. My question is what do I have to do to the hive to accept the new bees, canm I leave the honey in the hve and just add bees?

 

[Bill91143]

hello,

I checked my hive yesterday and the bees are gone but I have a LOT of honey left in both supers.
I live in NE and have had a very cold winter. I ordered more bees just in case I lost my hive. My question is what do I have to do to the hive to accept the new bees, canm I leave the honey in the hve and just add bees?[/QUOTE I will probably get a lot of disagreement here, but if nothing looked unusual about the hive I would just add the bees to your empty hive. I lost 5 hives out of 18 this winter and I intend to add bees back into these hives with the comb and honey that was left in them.

 

[merince]

You can just add the bees and they will clean it up really nice. Depending on when you are getting your package, you might want to make sure no mice can get into the hive and chew on the frames. You might also want to freeze the brood frames if you are getting your package later in the spring to avoid wax moth damage.

 

[brooksbeefarm]

As long as the temp. stays under 40F i would close the hive up and leave it, but when the temp. starts to warm up i would put frames in the freezer or store with moth crystals until i got my bees or you may loose them to wax moths.If there is no sign of disease, then i would use them for the new bees.

 

[Jrod5000]

As long as the temp. stays under 40F i would close the hive up and leave it, but when the temp. starts to warm up i would put frames in the freezer or store with moth crystals until i got my bees or you may loose them to wax moths.If there is no sign of disease, then i would use them for the new bees.

Thank you very much for your quick reply and info.