Dealing with mold

February 3, 2016

The following is offered by George and Harriet Robinson. It is their first hand advice on how to deal with mold on frames.

The honey frames from our dead hives were moldy.

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Harriet wipes the foundation and frames with a solution of water and bleach

Although the bees can clean them up to eat the honey if we give these frames to another hive, Carol Cotrill recommended killing the mold by wiping it with a solution of 9 parts water to 1 part bleach (I used 3 cups of warm water with 1/3 cup bleach).

 

IMG_0810We spaced the frames out into hives with 5 or 6 frames in a box so there would be plenty of air circulation and put them all outside in the air and sun on an above freezing sunny day (Feb 2).

 

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George Robinson

We then moved the boxes back under cover. Hopefully we can split our remaining hives this spring and have lots of honey to put with them. We may use some as spring feed, too.

 

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a dead cluster on the moldy capped honey

We won’t use the moldy frames as winter feed since cleaning off the mold isn’t something we want our winter bees to have to do.

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