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Author Topic: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood  (Read 2173 times)

Offline Old Blue

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Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« on: June 14, 2013, 07:38:58 pm »
This stuff is from my hive that I terminated with dry ice - no poisons or residues.

What would be the best way too handle approximately 2 & 1/2 deeps of partially capped honey.  None of it is harvestable just yet.  one box is about 1/2 to 70% capped frames and another box and a half is only maybe 30% capped and about 1/2 a box of open nectar.

I'm thinking of putting the box of mostly capped into my other 2 strong hives and 1 medium hive.  Putting the other capped in there with them somehow and leaving the open stuff out for open feeding.

I also have about 5 frames of brood that I didn't know what to do with.  I just set them out about 50 feet away. 

Does anyone have any better ideas or suggestions?

Old Blue
Cleaning up in.......
Kali-bone-ya

Offline Steel Tiger

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Re: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2013, 09:32:02 pm »
Seems you already have a plan. The frames of dead brood, I would be tempted to lay them on anthills during the day and let the ants clean them out.
 The question is, why kill an entire hive? It was obviously gathering and the queen was laying. If it was because of disease, then you wouldn't want to put the honey frames anywhere near another hive.

Offline marktrl

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Re: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2013, 01:28:10 am »
Put the brood combs in the other hives they will clean them up.

Offline JWChesnut

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Re: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2013, 03:31:54 am »
why kill an entire hive?

Blue had an unmanageable AHB hive in a suburban setting, and a serious systemic allergic reaction to its stings.  

Blue any debrief you want to give on the dry-ice method and your implementation.

Offline JPinMO

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Re: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2013, 04:09:01 am »
Blue, if my 2c counts for anything, I'd do just what you are doing - give the frames back to your other hives to rob out.

I have read of folks dumping larvae in to their chickens (in cases of varroa infestation); do you have any cluckers?
"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters
cannot be trusted in large ones either."  Albert Einstein

Offline GSF

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Re: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« Reply #5 on: June 16, 2013, 11:27:17 am »
What is AHB?
When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you - then you know your nation is doomed.

Offline Rurification

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Re: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« Reply #6 on: June 16, 2013, 12:58:43 pm »
What is AHB?

Africanized Honey Bees.   Mean.
Robin Edmundson
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Beekeeping since 2012

Offline GSF

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Re: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« Reply #7 on: June 16, 2013, 01:10:11 pm »
Okay, that one got by me :-\  I just don't recall seeing the acronym. Thanks
When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you - then you know your nation is doomed.

Offline Old Blue

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Re: Partial Frames of Honey and Dead Brood
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2013, 01:47:01 am »
Quote from: Blue any debrief you want to give on the dry-ice method and your implementation.
[/quote

Yeah, it was a pain in the neck.  Mostly because I had to fabricate a plastic liner large enough to put over the hive and tape down to the hive stand that it sits on.

I used two pieces of 1/8" hardware cloth (galvinized screen) to plug the entrance to the hive so that the bees couldn't get out and the CO2 from the dry ice could get in.  Then I taped down the bottom edge of the liner to the stand which left the hive sitting in a large plastic bag with the hive stand as the bottom of the bag.  I made the liner big enough so there would be room for the dry ice to sit along side the hive inside the bag and put in 3-4 lbs of the dry ice.  I vented to top cover with about 1/8" shims to keep the bees in but let the rising CO2 enter the hive through the screened entrance and fill the hive as the level rose and come out the vented top cover.  I gathered the top of the bag and put a brick on it to hold it in place but made sure that it wasn't sealed so the CO2 could push out and displace the air. 

After setting overnight I came back the next day and still had live bees in both stacks but one of them still gave a loud response when I rapped on the side of the boxes.  After careful inpection of the sealed bottoms of the bags to the hive stands I found some leaks and chalked it up to not getting a tight enough seal.  After resealing I did it all over again and this time I broke the dry ice up into small pieces so it evaporated (technically "sublimed") faster.  This time I could see the bags poofing out from the offgassing dry ice.  The next day there were still some live bees in both bags, how I don't know but 99+% of them were dead.  I used a shop vac to vac up the live ones as I opened the bags and then worked my way down through the boxes transferring frame by frame to an empty receiver box as I vacuumed off the dead bees.

By the time I had finished all the boxes and dumped all the dead bees and sorted through everything it was a mess and all the other hives were filling the air because of all the free honey and nectar they were finding.  I put all the honey and nectar frames in a stack of boxes on their own hive stand and closed them up.  The next day I had to seal a crack in the top board they were getting in through and retreat my stand legs with a fresh coat of tanglfoot to secure the honey and nectar frames.

I was going to put them into my other hives today but my kids were working so I didn't do it at the time slot I had told my host that I would because of Fathers Day plans so I will have to do it tomorrow.

Any ways thats the gist of it and thats where it all sits as of now.  I think I will call Harris Honey Bees soon and find out about getting some new domestic VSH queens and start working towards that.

Any body have any ideas or suggestions re where the avocado guys are getting their queens?  Or if it would be a better option for me for my remaining 4 colonies?

Old Blue
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Kali-bone-ya