I have quite a few deep supers of fully capped crystallized honey in them and I'm wondering if there is an way to extract the the honey from them? The some wooden and some plastic frames with most of them having foundation in them. I would really like to get these cleaned up so they can be used again so just wondering if anyone had any advice. Thanks!
How Can I Remove Crystallized Honey In Frame?
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I just did this. I put the uncapped frames in my extractor and set the extractor, lid closed, in my hot closed garage this morning. I ran the extractor just a few minutes ago. The frames extracted but they did not dry out as well as uncrystalized frames. I'll spritz them with water when I give the frames back to the bees to clean them up and I think they'll be ready to use again. I only had a single extractor load of medium super frames though. One load a day could take a while if you have many deeps.
Was it just old and thick, almost solid, or crystallized?
My bees have loaded up the double deeps a lot better than the supers so I pulled some of the older honey deeps and had some honey areas in the frames that was very dark and very thick.
The newer old honey extracted from last fall and the other seemed to stay in the comb for the most part. It made some good darker honey between the supers and 8 deep frames and there was not that much of the solid honey to begin with. I fig the bees will just recycle it when cleaning.
I have asked the question earlier how do you manage the hive when the bottom deeps are being over filled though I had 5 and 7 frames of solid brood in the two hives and very few eggs and larva.
My bees have loaded up the double deeps a lot better than the supers so I pulled some of the older honey deeps and had some honey areas in the frames that was very dark and very thick.
The newer old honey extracted from last fall and the other seemed to stay in the comb for the most part. It made some good darker honey between the supers and 8 deep frames and there was not that much of the solid honey to begin with. I fig the bees will just recycle it when cleaning.
I have asked the question earlier how do you manage the hive when the bottom deeps are being over filled though I had 5 and 7 frames of solid brood in the two hives and very few eggs and larva.
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Any old honey goes right to the bees - be it too thick/crystallized or fermenting or moth infested - anything goes.
That is what big resource hive in the backyard does for me - cleanup jobs.
Nothing is wasted.
Right now they are drying the piles of accumulated C&S residue before I will melt it.
Try to mess up old honey frame by scraping it well; spray it really well with water; plug back in.
If this works - scale up the operation.
Figure out how make it work for you.
Seriously, it is much, much faster and more efficient to reprocess old honey and make it as good as new vs. harvesting diluted nectar.
Why people don't have the bees reprocess the old honey is beyond me.
It will become just as good as new, only needs some bee spit freshly added to it.
Remember, honey is natural sugar water with bee spit mixed in.
Let them redo the spit part.
That is what big resource hive in the backyard does for me - cleanup jobs.
Nothing is wasted.
Right now they are drying the piles of accumulated C&S residue before I will melt it.
Try to mess up old honey frame by scraping it well; spray it really well with water; plug back in.
If this works - scale up the operation.
Figure out how make it work for you.
Seriously, it is much, much faster and more efficient to reprocess old honey and make it as good as new vs. harvesting diluted nectar.
Why people don't have the bees reprocess the old honey is beyond me.
It will become just as good as new, only needs some bee spit freshly added to it.
Remember, honey is natural sugar water with bee spit mixed in.
Let them redo the spit part.
Man I was working up a good spit,, but I'll let the bees do it...........
BYW ants will remove it as well...
at times I place a old honey frame in a Trap as well.
either bees move in or it gets emptied.
could do some late splits, add a deep box of honey to each for the winter and see if that works.
GG
Time and ant type matter
they also seemed to clean out the old capped brood, I notice the big black "carpenter" ants I think,, did the best.I have seen bees even take the bottom out of the cell, if out to clean in the open, the rush to get the goods has them be fairly aggressive.
Most of my experience was accidental, where A dead out found a bit late was filled with ants. or collecting traps in late July found some "infestations"
Almost all damage was repaired by the bees, Mouse holes normally get drone cells.
if it is too damaged i just scrape it out and redo the foundation. Have 8-10 of those a year as well. mostly light scrape and use for traps as they have wax and propolis on them.
GG
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