I posted this question last night, but don't see it on the board today. Not sure what happened, but appologies in advance if the other one somehow shows up and this one becomes a duplicate.
I have a hive that died due to starvation. I want to clean out the dead bees and leave the comb for the package bees to use, which I will obtain in April. I doubt it's a good idea to just leave the dead bees in there between now and then ... disease, bacteria, etc. What's the best way to clean them out? The two supers just have a few dead bees in various cells, so I can probably get them by hand. But down in the hive body there are a lot of bees in what was the center of the cluster. Any way to get these out, other than picking them out by hand?
Also, I'm planning to put the one deep hive body and two supers into a freezer for a couple days, to kill any SHB and/or moth eggs/larvae that might be there. Thoughts on this?
Thanks.
Adam
I have a hive that died due to starvation. I want to clean out the dead bees and leave the comb for the package bees to use, which I will obtain in April. I doubt it's a good idea to just leave the dead bees in there between now and then ... disease, bacteria, etc. What's the best way to clean them out? The two supers just have a few dead bees in various cells, so I can probably get them by hand. But down in the hive body there are a lot of bees in what was the center of the cluster. Any way to get these out, other than picking them out by hand?
Also, I'm planning to put the one deep hive body and two supers into a freezer for a couple days, to kill any SHB and/or moth eggs/larvae that might be there. Thoughts on this?
Thanks.
Adam