[jbaird]

Lost our sole colony this yr.

We blame it on the cold and damp.

Have a new nuc on order. Our girls left about twelve shallow frames slap full of honey.

Today we looked inside and found a bunch of big black carpenter ants living it up.

We evicted them rudely, but still have a few nestled inside cells.

How to get rid of them? Will smoke work?

 

[wags]

Freeze the frames for 24 hours?

 

[Vance G]

I assume the shallow frames were in a super not the brood box/s. If it is not granulated I would extract it. Can be fed to you or the bees your choice.

 

[firefly22]

I am in the same boat with you, started new with package this year after loosing my 1 hive over the winter. I am a new beek so it was horrible to loose them. I am not sure what went wrong blame the cold long winter we had in NY. I also had super full on honey and lots of stores in the hive bodies. I put the super frames in freezer and put the package into hive body with all the stores but 2 new frames. They have been in the hive 3 weeks now 2 hive bodies in place. All seems to be going well. I wish you luck and hope your new hive grows quickly.

 

[Jon B]

Freeze them and then us them a s feed for the nuc. I wouldn't recommend extracting them unless you are certain there is no sugar syrup feed from last fall in the frames.