I started beekeeping last year with two hives. I combined the hives in the fall because one hive had almost no stored honey. Very cold spell in late Dec early Jan and I lost the combined hive to freezing. So now I have a hive almost full of stored honey. It sounds like I should put this honey into my two new hives this year. My question is how? Do the bees need both supers for raising brood? If I fill the upper super with stored honey will this be a problem?
its not a good policy to do that, any diseases or chemical issues will be transferred over..if your 150% sure it was the cold that killed the bees, otherwise you may just be poisoning the new bees..
I am not sure where you live,
I live in Nova Scotia Canada and run around 600 hives
I have not lost a hive do to cold, even today it is 25 degrees F here
When you combined the hives did you kill off a queen?
Anyway to answer your question to what I do if I have a dead out and there is Honey left
I have very good records of every hive so I look back to the fall and check what has been done too the hive and if there is nothing that wil harm the next bees,next I look at what killed the hive if i can identify the cause then and it is not something that will hurt the next hive I use them if I can’t I burn them
I would not put a full box on if you use them put 4 frames in per hive ,2 on each outside edge on the brood box you want to make sure you will not use the Honey anyway that is what works for me
Thanks for the response. I live in central WV. I did kill the queen from the hive before combining the two hives. I am very sure that the loss was from cold. I had a very small cluster, less than 200 bees and I think probably closer to 100 bees. Had a full week of temperatures in the 0 degrees F in early winter. I did not treat with any chemicals last year. So should I put 4 frames in the upper brood box or should I leave the upper box off until later and put them in the lower brood box?
Only one box initially unless you have a LOT of bees. Too much real estate is too much for a small hive to cover and protect from pests. Freeze your honey frames to be sure that no SHB or their eggs are living in them, freeze 2 or 3 days at least, then thaw and ad 2 frames each side on outside edge of box
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