# extracting "deep" frames



## Zeke (Aug 21, 2002)

Over the weekend i was out and about
checking my hives for winter food stores and etc. .
i noticed that one hive has both deeps completly filled with honey for winter food stores allready , and i got too thinking what i be doing more harm than good 
if i was to pull half of the frames out and extract the honey then feed a while 
to replenish the honey i have taken out 
or is this just kinda "robbing Peter to pay
Paul" ?
Zeke


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>i got too thinking what i be doing more harm than good 
if i was to pull half of the frames out and extract the honey then feed a while 
to replenish the honey i have taken out 
or is this just kinda "robbing Peter to pay
Paul" ?

A lot of people do this. They rob virtually everything and then try to feed them back enough for winter. It seems to work for a lot of people.

I leave them the honey. I think honey is more nutritious. There are studies that base how "good" winter feed is by how much the bees have to defecate. I think this is an inadequate measurement of the worth of winter feed. Honey has a lot of minerals and some traces of other things that are not in sugar. Honey is also a different pH than sugar syrup. I think it's less stressful on the bees to have honey. Of course if there isn't enough honey for the bees, sugar syrup is much less stressful than starvation.

I would rather feed syrup than have inadequate stores, but I'd rather have honey for winter stores.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Another issue when extracting from the brood area, is whether or not you use chemicals. I don't, so extracting from the brood chamber is not an issue for me. If you use Terramycin or Apistan or Fumadil etc. then you can't use the honey from the brood chamber because it has chemicals in it.

Of course bees move honey and even wax, all over all the time, so if you use those chemicals they are probably in the supers also, but in smaller amounts.


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## clintonbemrose (Oct 23, 2001)

I would pull several frames from the center and extract them and put the wet frames back so the hive was not honeybound and the queen would have a place to lay some eggs.
Clint

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Clinton Bemrose
just South of Lansing Michigan


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## Iowabeeman (Mar 9, 2003)

How much brood do you have in this hive? I'm assuming you have supers on this colony. I've had a few hives this year that had queen failure after the field force was built up. There was very little brood so they filled the bottem boxes with honey. I'm not going to be able to winter these bees.


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## Zeke (Aug 21, 2002)

the amount of brood is almost nil ,
i dont use any chemicals or anything else that would contaminate the honey while i have supers on the hive .
i am kinda puzzled as to why the bees have filled the deeps with honey so soon .
Zeke


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## Mark Carden (Apr 30, 2003)

I think Clintonbemrose hit the nail on the head. I have found when I have lost a queen or one is failing that they bring honey into the brood chamber. It looks like they are bringing in a lot of pollen too but I think they just aren't using it to raise young bees so it builds up. I would check to see if they are queen right. If not I would extract what I could and combine the hive with another. If you see the queen you might want to think about requeening unless you see signs of a swarm. The new queen would be very difficult to distinguish from the other bees.
If the hives have already kicked out the drones and you feel you have a virgin queen you should probably requeen because she would be inferior. IMHO

Mark


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>the amount of brood is almost nil ,

Sounds like you may be queenless. If not then your queen has shut down laying for the year (or at least until it rains)

>i dont use any chemicals or anything else that would contaminate the honey
>"while i have supers on the hive."

I'm not talking about "while there are supers on the hive". If you use chemicals at all while the DEEPS are on the hive then they are contaminated.


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## Zeke (Aug 21, 2002)

if the queen is "failing" what would the population be like ??
i habve noticed that when i went to check the super that the hive was still populated quite heavily .
Zeke


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Sometimes a queenless hive takes a while to depopulate. But it does drop off quickly once it starts to drop off. They wills start drifting.


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