# This may be a dumb newbie question...



## flyin-lowe (May 15, 2014)

But better safe then sorry. This year I had two of my 3 of my 11 hives die over the winter. Two of them have tons of honey in them. I was talking to an old school beek in my area ( in his 80's, keeping bees 40 plus years). I asked him what he recommended I do with the honey. He said jar it and sell it, what else would you do with it? I pulled several of the frames and they are full, capped, but the caps look a little darker then freshly capped honey. Do you guys sell honey from a dead out or is that a "no no"? This is only my third year and in the past the hives I lost over the winter did not have but a frame or two of honey. Between the three hives I feel like the boxes with honey probably weigh close to 100 pounds all together.


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## bjamesvw (Apr 17, 2014)

I sell mine, the only problem I have is it crystallizes faster because it's already a few months old. You could also feed it back to the new bees if you aren't comfortable selling it.


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## My-smokepole (Apr 14, 2008)

That or park it on top of a live hive till you are ready to extract.


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## flyin-lowe (May 15, 2014)

Ok thanks for the info. I just didn't want everyone to say it is not OK to use it for human consumption. I didn't figure there would be anything wrong with it but wanted to make sure. Thanks for the info.


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## Gumpy (Mar 30, 2016)

Nobody asked, but did you treat for mites, and if so, what did you use, and was the honey on the hive at the time of treatment?


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

I think this should be your deciding factor


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

flyin-lowe said:


> This year I had two of my 3 of my 11 hives die over the winter.


Unnnhhhh...what? Two of three of eleven?

Some clarification is in order.

Also, if this is honey from brood boxes, was there any treatment, and if so, what?


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## flyin-lowe (May 15, 2014)

It was 3 of eleven hives, not sure what was going through my mind when I typed that.

I forgot to take into account the mite treatment. I did three rounds of OAV treatments 7 days apart back in September. I left the supers on because it was honey I figured the bees would consume over the winter. Before I treated I was reading about this and a couple things come to mind. Some said not to sell the honey but it is safe for consumption for family etc. I also read that the half life of OA is short and that it will not penetrate the cappings. So if I am remembering correctly the honey is safe for consumption as long as I am using it or letting people know, or do you not ever consume honey from a treated hive?


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

Personal practice, I don't extract anything that was on the hive during a treatment.


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## SouthTexasJohn (Mar 16, 2015)

Eikel said:


> Personal practice, I don't extract anything that was on the hive during a treatment.


X2


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

flyin-lowe said:


> It was 3 of eleven hives, not sure what was going through my mind when I typed that.


LOL! Crap happens.



> I forgot to take into account the mite treatment. I did three rounds of OAV treatments 7 days apart back in September. I left the supers on because it was honey I figured the bees would consume over the winter. Before I treated I was reading about this and a couple things come to mind. Some said not to sell the honey but it is safe for consumption for family etc. I also read that the half life of OA is short and that it will not penetrate the cappings. So if I am remembering correctly the honey is safe for consumption as long as I am using it or letting people know, or do you not ever consume honey from a treated hive?


I think that the 'official' protocol requires that honey supers not be present when treating with OA, and therefore, 'technically' it would not be legal to sell or give the honey to others for human consumption.

However, info seems to indicate that it does not penetrate the cappings and it would most likely be safe if you wanted to use it for yourself.

One should note, however, that leaving supers on increases the volume of space inside the hive, and therefore could throw off the dosage calculation, and if you under-dose it would reduce the efficacy of the treatment. That could leave you with insufficient control, and result in having more mites than you thought you had...and possibly ending up with a collapsed hive.


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