Honey frmo a Wild Colony

[Coldwater]

I was called out to remove a wild nest that had died out over winter. Bees had still been seen moving in late feb early march, but I suppose this winter was just too long for them. It was in the eaves of a huge barn and had apparently been there 10 years or more (with probably multiple swarms taking up residence over the years). The farmer wanted the comb removed so I was happy to oblige. It was HUGE, I filled 7 bin liners with mostly empty comb. The individual combs were being raided out by wax moth but were up to a metre wide. Quite some sight once I got up close. Most of the honey had been used p over winter and / or robbed out, but there was still quite a lot of old, slightly mouldy combs with granulated rape honey that may have been there years.

I have been slowly running the bags of comb through my solar extractor and getting some nice (if fairly musty smelling) wax out of it. But I am also getting a lot of honey running off. It seems a shame to waste it. I know the prevailing advice, but given I saw no evidence of disease in the combs, do you think I can feed it back to a colony for winter stores. Probably about 25lb of honey is going to come out of it.

Is there any way of "disinfecting" the honey to make it less likely that any disease might pass on? Has anyone added thymol to honey, and would this have any effect on reducing potential diseases?

 

[madasafish]

If one colony had died out from AFB or EFB, you are sentencing your bees to death..

Is it worth the risk?

 

[alanf]

I have been slowly running the bags of comb through my solar extractor and getting some nice (if fairly musty smelling) wax out of it. But I am also getting a lot of honey running off. It seems a shame to waste it. I know the prevailing advice, but given I saw no evidence of disease in the combs, do you think I can feed it back to a colony for winter stores. Probably about 25lb of honey is going to come out of it.

Is there any way of "disinfecting" the honey to make it less likely that any disease might pass on? Has anyone added thymol to honey, and would this have any effect on reducing potential diseases?

It's already been in a hot roof for a year or two. Then bake it in a solar extractor for a day or two. Dark and treacly look to it? There's an HMF level in there you can only guess at but it will be high.

Fairly harmless product in human food but toxic to bees. Eat it yourself, ideal for using in cakes but not good for bees.

 

[davnig]

Make mead from it

 

[Coldwater]

Interesting - don't know much about HMF. Will do some research, but sounds a pretty convincing argument.

 

[Coldwater]

Oh and yes - pretty dark and treacly now.

 

[alanf]

Interesting - don't know much about HMF. Will do some research, but sounds a pretty convincing argument.

You could start with http://www.airborne.co.nz/HMF.shtml which includes a table of what sort of heat treatment produces HMF levels around the limits for sold honey. There's also a longer reference link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxymethylfurfural has a general description of how it forms.

Disease is probably less of a problem in comb from a colony dead for months and heat treated in a solar extractor. A lot depends on your handling practice if there's a lot of untreated comb about. There are spores that might survive. AFB is the obvious one, but that is rare. Maybe Nosema, usual treatment of comb is acetic acid fumes.