ok or bad idea

[wtiger]

I harvested a medium super of honey a week ago, my first harvest, using crush and strain.  Today I spread the wet cappings out on a few trays a couple hundred yards from the hives to let the bees clean it up and they just went wild.  There were probably 50 dead bees scattered about at night fall.   I know 50 dead bees is no biggie but is there any real risk to doing this?  Do I expose my hives to a large portion diseases and viruses?  Could this hurt them?  Basically is this ok.  I was expecting a bit of a frenzy over the cappings, but I've never seen so many bees cover anything outside of a swarm.  The trays were absolutely covered.  You couldn't even see the cappings other than when 5-10  were fighting a hunk off of the tray onto the ground.

As a side note it was really cool to watch.

[TwT]

not a problem at all, only time it could be bad is if you had a hive with signs of foul brood, as long as its all from your healthy hives don't worry about it, I put my capping's out every year along with my empty supers, no since in wasting it when the gals can use it and its also a very good way to clean the honey from your capping's  ;) .

[Scadsobees]

I do this too, just make sure they aren't too close to the hives, or the bees will go looking for other easy pickings :shock:.

They do get aggressive when cleaning the cappings up, and I've been stung if I get too close.  And it attracts all of the neighborhood wasps, hornets, yellowjackets, vespas, and other unsavory characters to your area.

I think I decided I'll do it earlier in the summer when there is a flow on, but during a dearth and in the fall...it is just too many flying bugs with stinger butts for me to bother with. 

You can do the same thing inside of a hive, just stick it on the top bars with a box overtop and make sure that there aren't any easy entrances, and they will clean it up good without the crazy bees flying around.

Rick

[dpence]

I do the same thing. This year I put some of the extracted frames in a hive.  Another super we harvested  I put the frames out away from the hives hanging in a deep box.  Surprisingly it was raining yesterday and the girls were working clean up very well.   

David