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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com>, Hamsiba Family <hamsibas AT gmail.com>, ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] recycling partially capped super frames
  • Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:06:41 -0400

For what it's worth, the over-the-inner-cover method seems to work slightly better for me if I set an empty medium or deep over the cover before putting the to-be-cleaned super on. The extra empty distance perhaps makes it appear even more like the honey isn't part of the nest, encouraging the bees to move it. Regardless, this method, with or without the extra space, usually doesn't work very well for me. Lewis' "set them aside" approach is guaranteed to get the job done in short order.

Randall



On 8/19/2014 9:23 AM, Lewis Cauble wrote:
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I believe the easiest thing to do is to set the supers out away from your colonies and allow the bees to clean them up before storing them for the winter.  I do not believe the bees will move the honey from the supers if you put them back on the colonies.
 
One thing to try as an experiment...I have heard Don Hopkins recommend this I believe...Scratch the capped frames to open up the cells.  Place the super above the inner cover, then put your telescoping top on top of the super.  See if the bees take the hint and move the honey down in to the top deep.  Leave the super on for a week and then see what they have done.  If they have recapped the open cells, go back to Plan A (place the supers away from the colonies and allow them to clean them out).
 
If you try the experiment, let us know what happens.
 
Lewis
 

On August 18, 2014 at 9:01 PM Hamsiba Family <hamsibas AT gmail.com> wrote:
Ok, we used the wonderful OCBA extractor to extract the high percentage capped super frames for our first honey harvest.  Check.
 
Now we have returned the extracted frames to the hive to be cleaned.  Check.
 
What to do with the partially capped frames we did not extract?  Will the bees clean them out or just keep them around? Per Lewis's admonition last week, we want to reduce back down from two deeps plus supers to only two deeps and no supers.  
 
Should we scratch open the sealed cells to stimulate their cleaning?  Or just leave a super on for now with the remaining unextracted frames plus some used extracted ones to fill in the space (our hive beetles vote yes!)
 
Thanks as always for your valued opinions.
 
Cheers,  Brad Kosiba
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