So, in getting into my beekeeping adventures I bought used equipment. Yes, yes. I know. Roll of the dice. The first two deeps we got were fine though. They had been sitting for two years in a barn where the fellow had put them away due to his 9 hives dying out while he was on vacation due to assumed tracheal mites. He had put the hive moth crystals on them, and there didn't seem to be too much damage.
I installed two packages in each deep, and so far everyone seems pretty happy.
Now, of course, our nectar flow is on hard and heavy, and so I went back for the second deeps, knowing that I will be having to toss them on here soon. The fellow couldn't meet me this time, so instead he pulled two boxes out for me, and left them beside of the barn.
I checked through the frames as always before loading them up (don't need a wolf spider riding shotgun, after all) and started frowning at the heavy and seemingly full frames within. Was this honey? It certainly didn't quite look like honey. Plus most of it was a reddish brown color and leaking where it had cracked open from my manipulations. I took them home where I could do a more careful inspection, and while there is a tiny bit of waxmoth damage, there really doesn't seem to be an awful lot.
My question and wonder is this...
When I scrape those capped cells, they are full of small round things. They don't quite look like eggs, but yet they do at the same token. They don't match up to the SHB egg pictures I have found either. But the honey, or mystery liquid, inside of most of them is dark colored, and does not totally smell yeasty. So I am not 100% sure its fermented...whatever it is.
What in the world should I do?? Give it to the bees and let them clean it up? I am pretty darned sure that whatever WAS in there is long dead, because otherwise I would be seeing a lot more than that. I don't want to put undue stress on the new gals though, either.
Thanks for any input, and I will put pictures up tomorrow morning when its light out if that would be helpful.
I installed two packages in each deep, and so far everyone seems pretty happy.
Now, of course, our nectar flow is on hard and heavy, and so I went back for the second deeps, knowing that I will be having to toss them on here soon. The fellow couldn't meet me this time, so instead he pulled two boxes out for me, and left them beside of the barn.
I checked through the frames as always before loading them up (don't need a wolf spider riding shotgun, after all) and started frowning at the heavy and seemingly full frames within. Was this honey? It certainly didn't quite look like honey. Plus most of it was a reddish brown color and leaking where it had cracked open from my manipulations. I took them home where I could do a more careful inspection, and while there is a tiny bit of waxmoth damage, there really doesn't seem to be an awful lot.
My question and wonder is this...
When I scrape those capped cells, they are full of small round things. They don't quite look like eggs, but yet they do at the same token. They don't match up to the SHB egg pictures I have found either. But the honey, or mystery liquid, inside of most of them is dark colored, and does not totally smell yeasty. So I am not 100% sure its fermented...whatever it is.
What in the world should I do?? Give it to the bees and let them clean it up? I am pretty darned sure that whatever WAS in there is long dead, because otherwise I would be seeing a lot more than that. I don't want to put undue stress on the new gals though, either.
Thanks for any input, and I will put pictures up tomorrow morning when its light out if that would be helpful.
