Getting dead bees out of the comb

[alblbr]

Today I was picking up the deadouts and cleaning up the hive bodies, scraping off burr comb etc. How do you get the dead bees out of the combs. The bees starved this winter and are head first in the cells. Would soaking the frames in water float out the dead bees? Picking tham out one by one could take a long time and they aren't that easy to pick out.

[Understudy]

If you can put the frame into another hive go for it. The bees will clean out the comb without damaging the cells.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Robo]

Brendhan is right,  let the new bees pull them out of the cells.   It is much easier for the bees to pull out the dead bees than to repair the damage to the comb you might do removing them yourself.

Just brush of the ones not in cells and give to the new package/nuc.  All will be fine.  Cleaning up dead bees from the winter is a normal operation for a hive.

[Brian D. Bray]

DITTO!

Use your bee brush to remove as many bees as you can and let the bees do the rest.  They can do it far better than we can.  You want to encourage hygenic behavior not suppress it.

[thegolfpsycho]

When I'm inspecting the frames of a colony that appears to have died from starvation, I just hold the frame horizontally and give a couple raps from below with my hive tool on the end bar/top bar joint.  Most of the bees fall off, including the ones in the cells.  I don't go crazy beating on the things, but a couple quick raps gets 95% of them off.  The rest I leave for the bees to finish.