freezing frames of pollen

901 Views 1 Reply 2 Participants Last post by Troy, Aug 10, 2010

PerryBee

Discussion Starter · #1 · Aug 10, 2010

I have a few hives that were raising new queens and while they did they absolutely plugged up the bottom brood box with pollen. I mean 7-8 frames, covered on both sides. This is now a problem as their brood chamber has been reduced and there is a lot less room for these new queens to lay in. I don't have any more frames with drawn comb so I thought I might remove say 5-6 frames of pollen and drop some frames with brood into the lower box and replace them with foundation in the upper box. Goldenrod is just hitting it's stride up here so I think they have time to draw out some comb for the queens to lay in (hopefully not too late for raising winter bees).
My question is what to do with the frames of pollen? :scratch:. I thought I read here somewhere that you can wrap them in plastic and put them in a freezer till next spring. Does this sound like a good idea?

Perry

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Troy

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Joined Feb 9, 2006

1,314 Posts

#2 · Aug 10, 2010

If you have the freezer space then sure - store it until spring.

For me I don't have the space and even if I did I'd want to get those drawn frames back in service as quickly as possible.

I have on occasion soaked the frames for an hour or so in a tub of barely warm water. Then hose them off gently with the hose end thing set on rain or soak. Not too much pressure, but enough to tunnel into each cell and wash away the pollen.

In my experience, with 3 or 4 soak and rinse cycles I can get them pretty clean.

Don't leave them soaking overnight though. The wood frames soak up too much water and just fall apart. Ask me how I know........