[quilaho]

I'm about to begin my second beekeeping season. Neither of my hives from season one made it resulting in quite a few frames of unused brood honey. What is the most effective, productive way to utilize these in my hives this season?

 

[tsmullins]

I'm about to begin my second beekeeping season. Neither of my hives from season one made it resulting in quite a few frames of unused brood honey. What is the most effective, productive way to utilize these in my hives this season?

Honey from the brood chamber I would save for my new/other bees. Capped honey from deadouts in supers, or full frames of honey on the outside of the brood area, I save for me.

YMMV,

Shane

 

[Stella]

Im going to assume youve got package bees coming soon.

You can use the honey and drawn comb for the new bees. It will get them off to a roaring start not having to draw comb initially. Set up your new hives with some frames of honey and some frames of drawn comb. I like to leave a few undrawn frames with foundation in the middle so they can decide if they want to do something different with them. You will need to be more diligent in watching their progression this year on drawn comb. If things go well, and our weather doesnt regress, they can build up fast.

You can also put extra frames of honey in the freezer for later use.

What a hard core winter we suffered through. It was just too cold for too long. I almost didnt make it myself. :lookout:

 

[quilaho]

Stella ... Yes, picking up 2 packages today! I'm off to Beekeeping In Northern Climates Part 2 shortly then, this evening after that, I have to swing over through Stillwater to pickup the packages at Natures Nectar. I'd like to blame the winter for my hive not surviving but, while I'm sure it played its part, I'm certain that hive demise was caused by FBS (First-time Beekeeper Syndrome).

It's nice to hear from a fellow Minnesnotan on such a large forum. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Acebird]

Assuming you have checked for diseases and they are OK you should be able to dump the bees right in leaving the frames in the order they were.

 

[Mike Gillmore]

As Stella mentioned, Make sure you have a few undrawn frames in there somewhere. Your packages will probably have a lot of young bees that are ready to go with wax. If they don't have frames to draw comb on they will build it somewhere, and it won't be where you want it.