bees cleaning extractionequipment.

[JohnRoss]

Hi all, I have just put 3 supers worth of cappings, a few buckets and some other honey bits of proccessing equipment out for the bees to clean up. they seem to love it. is this a good or bad idea?

 

[Beeline]

I seriously hope you're talking about feeding in an empty super above the hive and not in the open to all bees?

 

[pargyle]

Hi all, I have just put 3 supers worth of cappings, a few buckets and some other honey bits of proccessing equipment out for the bees to clean up. they seem to love it. is this a good or bad idea?

Sounds like you have put them out in the open ? BAD idea ... you will have every bee and wasp for miles around on them ... and if they are near your hives you will have problems with robbing or worse ... disease transfer.

 

[Winker]

Hi all, I have just put 3 supers worth of cappings, a few buckets and some other honey bits of proccessing equipment out for the bees to clean up. they seem to love it. is this a good or bad idea?

I seriously hope you're talking about feeding in an empty super above the hive and not in the open to all bees?

It looks as if he has just left them some where near his hive's.

John no its not a good idea to leave the stuff out of the bees to clean up. There are many reasons not to do it.

Wasps, spreading disease, fighting, encourage robbing are but a few

 

[Excession]

Bad.

Encourages robbing, and potentially a vector for disease.

Lol, got beaten to it by all the above!!

 

[JohnRoss]

What if it is in a garden with only 1 nuc, the apiary is miles away?

 

[Arfermo]

Best way of getting cappings etc cleaned is to put all the bits and pieces in a Miller/Ashforth feeder. Even then you might need to be choosy about which hive you use for the job as I have one that re-renders all the wax and glues eveything in sight in the feeder and creates lumps of stuff to chisel off. My preferred hive however does a nice job by leaving everything crumbly, loose and clean.

 

[JohnRoss]

Its a bit late now. I left the stuff outside on the advice of an older beekeeper, but now that I think of it he was also telling me about the major problems he was having with robbing.

I left the stuff out 2 hours ago and everything but the cappings has now been cleaned and brought back inside.

 

[domino]

I was planning on putting my stuff out in the back garden as well - but I don't have bees so it shouldn't be an issue I think.

 

[Illo]

I was planning on putting my stuff out in the back garden as well - but I don't have bees so it shouldn't be an issue I think.

True enough, but other people do have bees, and you may unknowingly be infecting their colonies. Even if the nearest colonies are a mile away, there is a strong chance of them finding the booty that you leave out, and bringing all of their foraging sisters to such a rich source of pickings.

A responsible approach would be to not leave equipment out in the garden to be cleaned by bees - either your own or anyone else's

LJ

 

[Rich0909]

True enough, but other people do have bees, and you may unknowingly be infecting their colonies. Even if the nearest colonies are a mile away, there is a strong chance of them finding the booty that you leave out, and bringing all of their foraging sisters to such a rich source of pickings.

A responsible approach would be to not leave equipment out in the garden to be cleaned by bees - either your own or anyone else's

LJ

 

[JohnRoss]

notice that some of the bees are carrying small shards of wax back to the hive. would they use this to build comb?

 

[domino]

True enough, but other people do have bees, and you may unknowingly be infecting their colonies. Even if the nearest colonies are a mile away, there is a strong chance of them finding the booty that you leave out, and bringing all of their foraging sisters to such a rich source of pickings.

A responsible approach would be to not leave equipment out in the garden to be cleaned by bees - either your own or anyone else's

LJ

That's a fair point, I'll jet wash it instead.

 

[Winker]

The capping I put in a big bucket of water and wash them clean by hand them pop the clean capping's into the solar extractor. The extracted frames go back on the hive for the bees to clean up. Easy!

 

[Teemore]

Hi all, I have just put 3 supers worth of cappings, a few buckets and some other honey bits of proccessing equipment out for the bees to clean up. they seem to love it. is this a good or bad idea?

Please do not do this! John, there are a lot of beekeepers in the County and as noted in some of the other posts, this sort of action encourages robbing behaviour and is a ready way of transmitting serious diseases. Even if your own apiary is a good distance away, there might be other beekeepers close by.

 

[psafloyd]

What if it is in a garden with only 1 nuc, the apiary is miles away?

Your apiary may be miles away, but there will be many other bees in the vicinity. Or there will be now...

 

[alldigging]

I've washed the cappings and extractor (36kg extracted) and have had a go at making mead... Well it'd be rude not to.

The supers are back on the hives.

 

[ichbinpaul]

I've washed the cappings and extractor (36kg extracted) and have had a go at making mead... Well it'd be rude not to.

The supers are back on the hives.

Is the 36kg all going to make monk nectar, or just the clean up & cappings? if its the former I think there should be a tasting ceremony

 

[alldigging]

Is the 36kg all going to make monk nectar, or just the clean up & cappings? if its the former I think there should be a tasting ceremony

Gosh hadn't thought of making it all into mead.. suspect that won't go down well as a suggestion though. He says everything I brew tastes horrid apart from the dandelion wine...

 

[ichbinpaul]

Gosh hadn't thought of making it all into mead.. suspect that won't go down well as a suggestion though. He says everything I brew tastes horrid apart from the dandelion wine...

With mead you'l often get a subtle flavour, some people will add fruit to give a drink with more flavour, but all you have to do is freeze it overnight and filter out the ice and discard the ice, and you will have a nice noticable honey flavour thats if your honey is nice of course!.