Subject: Storing honey for feeding

From: [email-masked] (MarkVam)
Date: 1 Sep 1996 11:55:15 -0400

I am a hobbyist with two colonies. One of my colonies is near death,
queenless and depopulated after swarming at least twice this summer. It
has one deep super filled with capped honey. I don't want to extract the
honey because I had Apistan on the hive when the honey was stored. What I
guess I'd like to do is store the capped frames for spring feeding of my
other, thriving colony, as well as for the second colony I plan to start
next year. My question is, what's the best way to store the frames? I'm in
a very rural area, where field mice, squirrels, etc. can be a big problem
in the winter. I do have a deep-freeze, so that's one possibility. Or
should I just extract, set it aside, and feed it back to the bees that
way? Thanks for any advice.

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From: [email-masked] (Aaron Morris)
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 96 08:43:09 EDT

>way? Thanks for any advice.
 
Your bet bet would be to combine the weak hive with the strong hive
using the newspaper method and sort things out in the spring.  This is
of course provided that the weak hive is disease free.  Come next spring
you can evaluate the condition of the combined equipment and most likely
make a split (or two).
 
There are two advantages to this suggestion.  First, the combined hive
will benefit from the bees and stores of the weaker hive and second, your
equipment will be maintained by the bees in the combined hive until you
are able to manage it in the spring.
 
Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee!