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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Cheryl Meyer <cjmeyer9 AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Comb and Frames
  • Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 12:08:20 -0400

Cheryl,

If you extract while the honey flow is still going on, beekeepers put the supers (with the frames & combs) back on the hive and the bees fill them up again, just like returnable Coke bottles used to work in the old days. Wax is biologically expensive for the bees to make so re-use of combs, rather than re-creating them, is a very efficient approach.

When you extract for the last time of the honey season, which around here is by late June/early July, a really good thing to do is put the supers back on the hive for the bees to clean up. After a day or so, if the bees have done their job well, the combs will be clean and dry, ready to remove and store.

Instead of putting them on the hive for cleaning, sometimes at the end of the season beekeepers will simply set the wet supers out for the bees to clean up. This is best done a good distance away from the hives to avoid setting off a robbing frenzy. I've found that the biggest difference between this method and the back-on-the-hive method is that the bees can be very rough on the combs when they clean up the set-out supers. The combs end up somewhat chewed up, although they are still perfectly usable.

I've done it both ways depending on what is convenient for me at the time.

Randall Austin



On 4/20/2012 8:36 PM, Cheryl Meyer wrote:

What do beekeepers do with the remaining comb and frames after the honey has been extracted?  There is residual honey on the combs and all the bee’s wax.  Do you leave it out for the bees to eat and use?

 

Cheryl

 



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