cappings???

[mark s]

hi all
just extracted my first lot of honey and was wondering wot to do with all the cappings,can i just give them back to my bees??

 

[AMAE]

Sure, you can drain them through a sieve first...then give them back over the crown board...you then will have nice clean white wax for candles etc.

AMAE

 

[Poly Hive]

Or you can soak them in clean water, swishing them around until they are clean, strain off water, keeping it safe, and you have the start of your must for mead.

PH

 

[Midland Beek]

Uncap with a heat gun and you don't get left with a pile of wet cappings. Can't understand why anybody uses a knife these days.

 

[Poly Hive]

There are good reasons for cutting off cappings.

Gives the wax workers work and keeps them out of mischief, like making queen cells...

Cappings are a pest to deal with if you are not kitted up for them. Therefore it pays to kit up.

PH

 

[crazy_bull]

Uncap with a heat gun and you don't get left with a pile of wet cappings. Can't understand why anybody uses a knife these days.

I find a good knife quicker than a heat gun and gives you an opportunity to quickly staight out and interesting combs and slice of any brace comb on the top or bottom bars.

C B

 

[mark s]

all very good ideas ppl ive just given all mine back too my bees

 

[m100]

Or you can soak them in clean water, swishing them around until they are clean, strain off water, keeping it safe, and you have the start of your must for mead.

Tried that and left the water in a sealed honey bucket.

Then, when I was looking for some spare honey buckets in the autumn I remembered these buckets that had been left in the corner of the kitchen many months previously. I cracked open the lids, the 1st washings smelt very alcoholic, the 2nd batch well... It's difficult to think of the right words but fermented vomit isn't that far away.

I dumped the remains in a rain gulley some distance down the road...making sure I was downwind and no one saw me.