# Letting the Bees Clean Up



## Pilgarlic56 (Aug 6, 2010)

Starting with a deep hive body under two full honey supers, I pulled the honey and put a new medium with frames in their place. It was 10 days before I had the supers extracted and yesterday I put the extracted supers on top of the new medium to let the bees clean up. Two questions: How long should it take for the bees to clean up the remnant honey from the twenty extracted frames? And once they're cleaned, how many supers should I leave on there? My colony is healthy and very ective, still on pepper, primrose and goldenrod, I think.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

The super should be cleaned up in a day or less. It is best to only have what they covver 70 to 80 percent, so take the cleaned deep back off. The Brazilian Pepper is done now. There is not much coming in. If you leave too much extra space the small hive beetles will take advantage of the weakness and you will have nothing in a few weeks. Make sure you protect the empty super off the hive with para dichloro benzene moth crystals. If you do not the small hive beetles, wax moths and roaches will leave you nothing but a huge mess.


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

Americasbeekeeper,

So, is it your contention that the SHB will ruin "bee cleaned, dry" supers ? I thought they were after the honey...

As for the moths, get some BT and spray them instead.


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## peacekeeperapiaries (Jun 23, 2009)

Fuzzy said:


> So, is it your contention that the SHB will ruin "bee cleaned, dry" supers ? I thought they were after the honey


SHB will absolutely DESTROY fresh bee cleaned supers, but you wont see the damage right away, you will let the bees clean them up good then you will store them and about a week later you will find the supers and floor literally crawling with SHB larvae.....dont ask me how I know this...but I will tell you experience is a wonderfully harsh teacher


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## Eddie M (May 6, 2008)

My experience is that they won't remove the honey from the extracted frames if you place them back on as they were originally. They just clean up the wax particles - and maybe reorganize the honey in the same frames. If I want them to remove the honey and take it down to the wintering brood chamber I put an empty deep on top of the inner cover and place several "dirty" frames inside on their sides in a hap hazard manner and place the outer cover on top. Now they will clean them up.


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## jesuslives31548 (May 10, 2008)

Trust me SHB's will wreck havic on stored supers in the South. I learned that the hard way. I thougt after the bees cleaned up the supers for two days I would be safe. They appeared dry and clean. A week later SHB Slim all over bottom, strong foul odor you wont forget. I would recomend treatment during storage,drawn comb is valuable.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

I'm always amazed to read that you let frames, supers, cappings, extractors...to be cleaned up by the bees. It is illegal here in Australia as ( so we are told) it is apparently the most likely way to spread diseases. We are not even allowed to mix honey with bread to feed to the parrots as it could attract bees.
I wonder if we are to careful Downunder?!


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Have a look here: http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/CA256F310024B628/0/4AC9E7E751D28AA1CA257069001FF86F/$File/Apiary+Code+of+Practice+May+1997.pdf and go to 4.6...


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## FloridaBee (Oct 23, 2010)

AmericasBeekeeper said:


> ..... Make sure you protect the empty super off the hive with *para dichloro benzene moth crystals*.


.

AmericasBeekeeper - In an effort to stay 100% natural (i.e. no chemicals at all), I am wondering if instead of the para dichloro benzene moth crystals, if a person could just put the frames in the freezer for about a week or so, to prevent any SHB or moth problems?


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_if a person could just put the frames in the freezer for about a week or so, to prevent any SHB or moth problems? _

During the week that the frames are in the freezer, the frames should be fine.

Once you remove the frames from the freezer, all bets are off.

(Spraying a BT solution on the combs is a chemical free way of protecting against wax moths.)


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## ccar2000 (Aug 9, 2009)

My hives must not be as strong here. When I put a wet super on my hive (my first time) to be cleaned it took more than two weeks. 

Would burning a sulfur stick or powder be considered "100% natural" in use against wax moths? I know that it would not occur in a hive's natural environment. It is a treatment also used in wine making to disinfect oak barrels for storage. I have seen threads regarding its use where PDB crystals are banned for use.

I have not had to do any treatment myself and when researching, I found that the issue is killing the eggs (with either treatment). The ideal treatment would be to freeze the frames (killing the larvae) then take them out allowing the remaining eggs to hatch before freezing again. Depending upon the size of your operation that could be a lot of freezer space. If you were not successful in eliminating all of the eggs, maybe when reusing the frames, your hives would be able to keep the new larvae at bay?


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## Magnum12 (Nov 25, 2010)

Countryboy said:


> (Spraying a BT solution on the combs is a chemical free way of protecting against wax moths.)


Sorry to ask. Why when I search BT nothing pops?
What is BT?
Thanks very much


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis


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## Magnum12 (Nov 25, 2010)

Barry said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis


*Question 1*. Why when I search this forum within the search mode, is there nothing found for BT when it is within a post?

Thanks for the link.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Minimum search term within the forum is 3 characters long. For a search like BT, use the search field on the home page: http://www.beesource.com/


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## Magnum12 (Nov 25, 2010)

Thanks


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## B Reeves (Oct 2, 2009)

Freeze the box and frames for two or three days them put them in a heavy duty plastic bag kills moth and shb 
Bob


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## Black Creek (May 19, 2006)

this is my 1st year dealing with small hive beetles. i spray my combs with bt for moths. since the bt kills caterpillars, will it work on the small hive beetles wormy babies?


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

No! Does not kill SHB larva.


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