# After extracting - how long for bees to clean up super



## MJuric (Jul 12, 2010)

This is an interesting discussion for me as well. 

For the past couple years I've tried a couple things. First year I just stacked them up and left them in the yard. Didn't seem to cause any robbing issues but I also got a whole lot of feral bees, wasps, ants and even had a couple frames taken out by a raccoon. This was easy and it took only a day or so for them to get cleaned up. 

Last year I did it half and half putting the wet ones on the hives, but under the inner cover. This caused a problem as they seemed to do less cleaning and more "Fixing up" for storing. After two days many of the frames had stored honey/nectar in them. I ended up pulling many off and leaving them out with the others. 

This year I put them on over the inner cover and I'm finding that "Time" seems to be related to the strength of the hive. I am getting a bit of "Storage" but it may just be that some of the cells simply never got extracted as I have a few with spots of capped honey and only a very few spots of what looks like they are starting store. My strong hives clean them up in a day. I had a few hives that were weaker that I gave extra boxes for easy winter stores and it's been 2-3 days already and some of the frames are not even touched yet. 

I think this will also be effected by what the season was like. Last year was hot and dry with not very many flowers this time of year and the bees would be on anything left around almost instantly. This year I had a big sheet of sticky plastic and buckets I left out and they all but ignored it for a couple days and never had significant traffic on it. What would have been swarmed and cleaned up in a matter of hours last year took 3-4 days for them to clean up this year. 

Not sure if that was helpful or simply muddy the issue further 

~Matt


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## SallyD (Mar 12, 2011)

Hmmm....maybe I will just put them back on and let the bees clean them for a week. I will pull them off after a week and store them (freezer?)..Even if they start to store honey..can I take that off and freeze it? It won't be much (only a weeks time and we have no real flow going on in GA). After I remove the frames - then I will treat.


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## psfred (Jul 16, 2011)

If you want them to clean up the frames for storage rather than re-fill them, put them above the inner cover or at least put an empty box between the hive and the extracted frames. That way they won't treat them as part of the hive and will rob them out very quickly.

An empty box between the boxes with frames and the extracted frames above the inner cover won't hurt either. All that space makes them think it's not part of their hive and they remove the honey instead of storing things in the comb.

A week is plenty of time, usually only takes a day or two unless there is a big flow on.


Peter


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

psfred said:


> If you want them to clean up the frames for storage rather than re-fill them, put them above the inner cover or at least put an empty box between the hive and the extracted frames. That way they won't treat them as part of the hive and will rob them out very quickly.
> 
> An empty box between the boxes with frames and the extracted frames above the inner cover won't hurt either. All that space makes them think it's not part of their hive and they remove the honey instead of storing things in the comb.
> 
> ...


That is what I have been told but have no empty frames yet.


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## New Ky Beekeeper (Jun 27, 2011)

If you don't want to make multiple trips, I would say 1 super can be cleaned by 1 strong hive in 2-3 hours - more or less. I just put my frames in front of my hives 3-4 hours before dark. After an hour or so of darkness, I put them in a chest freezer for 24-48 hours. Done.

Remember - if there are very small bits of honey, it will not spoil. Bees will clean it next year.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

psfred said:


> .... put them above the inner cover or at least put an empty box between the hive and the extracted frames. That way they won't treat them as part of the hive and will rob them out very quickly.
> 
> An empty box between the boxes with frames and the extracted frames above the inner cover won't hurt either. All that space makes them think it's not part of their hive and they remove the honey instead of storing things in the comb. Peter


Nice book thought, does not always work. 

Place them about 100 yards away from your hives (to avoid robbing) and they'll clean them out much quicker ..


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## Dan. NY (Apr 15, 2011)

Alternatively, you can simply wait until the spring and put them on. This is what I did this year and there were no issues. My opinion is that the leftover honey got them interested and moving quicker. I wrapped them in plastic wrap, placed in a plastic bag, put inside. Did not store outside or in a barn. Will do the same this year after I pull everything. 

Dan


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