Post by willowlady on Oct 10, 2010 14:35:01 GMT -7
I've been keeping bees for a few years now and I have a couple questions.
1) Is the black mold that seems to accumulate on overwintered frames harmful or even annoying to the bees?
2) If we store the frames from the supers that still have a goodly amount of honey and wax, will they mold? This is the first year we just used the scratching tool to get honey, so there is a LOT of wax and honey left on the frames. We intend to freeze them before putting them in supers next Spring, but if the mold is an issue, what to do?
We are what I consider to be pretty organic. The only thing we use is HoneyBee Healthy when we're feeding them. We have only two hives. One of them is kind of mean, but smoke does wonders.
We had an interesting experience. Last year we put in a top bar hive body. It seemed it was taking forever for the bees to work that box. We were going to take it out this Spring, but I got a look at it from the underside as I was about to take it off -- and it was beautiful! Completely formed in about nine lines, very similar to the Langstrom. I just put it back down and let it beeee. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
1) Is the black mold that seems to accumulate on overwintered frames harmful or even annoying to the bees?
2) If we store the frames from the supers that still have a goodly amount of honey and wax, will they mold? This is the first year we just used the scratching tool to get honey, so there is a LOT of wax and honey left on the frames. We intend to freeze them before putting them in supers next Spring, but if the mold is an issue, what to do?
We are what I consider to be pretty organic. The only thing we use is HoneyBee Healthy when we're feeding them. We have only two hives. One of them is kind of mean, but smoke does wonders.
We had an interesting experience. Last year we put in a top bar hive body. It seemed it was taking forever for the bees to work that box. We were going to take it out this Spring, but I got a look at it from the underside as I was about to take it off -- and it was beautiful! Completely formed in about nine lines, very similar to the Langstrom. I just put it back down and let it beeee. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.