[mixofsam]

Hi Everyone,
Couple of questions:
One of my hives has two brood boxes (along with a honey super). The top brood box is almost completely filled with honey (not the super). Is this what is referred to is as the queen being honey bound (i.e. only staying in the bottom brood box due to lack of cells to lay in the upper brood box)?

I removed 4 center frames and placed in the honey super. I added 4 new frames (foundation) back into the 2nd brood box to hopefully give her space to move up. I had treated the two brood boxes with Apistan early this spring. Can I extract the honey from these 4 frames for human consumption or since the the frames/wax were exposed to Apistan back in the spring I should not?

Thanks for the comments.

 

[PerryBee]

In my opinion no, not for human consumption.
I run different size honey supers so that there is little chance I could have this problem. The honey in the four frames you have moved up has been exposed to Apistan. I never extract my deep frames for human consumption and I never have honey supers on when there is treatment in the hive.
That said, I am reading on this site alot that bees move honey around so even though my honey supers have never been exposed to chemicals directly, how would I know if the bees move honey that has been exposed in the deeps up into my honey supers once they are on?
Tricky

Perry

 

[Andrew Dewey]

Short answer - since the frames were in the hive when it was treated with Apistan, the honey on those frames should not be used for "human consumption."

 

[rweakley]

I've got an even better idea. Stop using poison in your hives and you can take honey from anywhere. Maybe not fessible for a commercial guy, but for a small timer you can use the other stuff to keep the pests down. Sugar dusting, small cell, drone trapping... yadda yadda I have NEVER used those chemicals in my hives and I only lose hives lately due to bad luck or my fault. BAD LUCK = storm blows lid off of an out yard hive and I don't get there to put it back on for a week or so in November. My Fault = didn't use mouse guard, mice got in and bees left in spring before I could clean up and get them to better quarters. None lost in last couple years due to VMs.