Fermenting Honey

[salvo]

Hi Folks,

Second year newbee here. Long story,... short.

Six weeks ago one of my three hives was queenless,...lots of workers, and brood of all ages,...no eggs.

Four and a half weeks ago a friend gave me a young queen he wanted to replace.

I checked the hive before introducing the new queen. Lots of workers, older brood,...and young brood and eggs,   "there's the Queen!". I had never seen the olde queen. This one was a great looking queen. I figure she was a supercedure.

She was beautiful. Whatta shape. Hubba Hubba! I named her Jessica (after Jessica Rabbit). I picked her up, looked her over, looked into her eyes,....I couldnt whack the dame!

The hive was in real good shape, two deeps and three supers, lots of capped and soon to be capped honey. I split it up. The new queen went into the olde hive. Jessica went into a deep, with brood and bees. The new hive was placed four feet away from the old hive. I restricted the entrances to both hives.

I have had a few shb's in all my hives, never a problem. I suppose that I gave Jessica too much room. I'm sure most workers flew back to the old hive. Nurse bees stayed.

I opened up Jessica’s hive last Sunday, about 10 shb's were on the outer frame. I realized my mistake. I pulled the first five frames out of the hive. The remaining five went into a nuc.

I don’t have a chest freezer. I put two very wet frames (brood too) into a plastic bag in the refrigerator freezer Sunday. I took them out Wednesday, and put another two frames in Wednesday. The second two are still in the freezer. I put the frozen frames in the cellar, unopened, in a plastic tub. I intended to “feed it back to the hives.

Today I got home and the cellar has a faint smell of “fermentation”.

Can I give these fermenting frames back to my hives tomorrow (Saturday)?

Thank you,

Salvo

[rober]

try freezing those frames again. this time allow all the frames to dry OUT of the bag. refreezing may stop the fermentation. if there is no mold the bees should clean them up. if they are moldy i'd clean them off & install new foundation. 10 beetles are not a lot. if your queen is laying she should fill those frames pretty fast. by removing the frames with brood you may have set the hive back a little. brood production can slow down some this time of year, especially with the drought we've been having. you might also try feeding them. they'll then fiil those frames with honey.