[chrissv]

I inherited 2 hives, one which was a dead-out, died sometime in the winter. The last time the hives were serviced was early in the fall. It has 2 deeps and 1 medium honey super.

It was a classic case of starvation - I found the final cluster in the upper super, in one corner.



Parts of the honey super had honey (now crystalized in the comb). The next deep had a surprising amount of honey in the classic circular pattern, with empty comb in the middle:



A lot of the deep frames also had uncapped nectar and pollen+nectar, which is now fermented (smells like a bar!).

The bottom deep was predominately empty, with a few frames with some honey in the corners.

My questions:

1) If I put the honey super on an active hive, will the bees clean out the crystailzed honey and then fill it with "good" honey? Do I need to do any scratching of caps?

2) If I hive a new package and use the existing deep frames, what should I do about those with honey? Will the bees handle it if I give them frames like the one shown above? Again, should I scratch open any honey?

Do you have any advice for re-using this comb with the honey / fermented nectar?

Thanks - Steven

 

[indypartridge]

My experience is that the bees are very good at cleaning up just about anything. I once had some pollen frames they seemed to ignore, but other than that, I've re-used dead-outs regularly, letting the bees to the clean up chores.