Natural life of super frames

[Levitt53]

We talk lots about changing brood frames but some of my super frames are starting to look a little discoloured. Do people just melt them down as a when they look at bit past their best? I'm in my 5th year now.

 

[boywonder]

More than interested in the replies to this myself, as I suspect that we hobby beekeepers refresh/renew super frames more often than strictly necessary or beneficial. So many people (not all of them expanding, I presume) talk of the hundreds of frames they knock-up in the winter months.

I fumigate frames routinely, so am happy that they do not harbour too many nasties. Given, therefore, that supers will not generally host brood (and the attendant excrement etc.), it's an interesting point. I have inspected some super comb from commercial beekeepers in Portugal, and it was black as coal. The good lord only knows how old it was, and the honey was probably amazing.

Not that I am saying that's right either... but my own feeling is that you should be able to get much more than 4 or 5 years from your drawn frames. (Obviously brood frames are a different matter).

Discuss ?!

 

[Erichalfbee]

I melt down my super frames when they fall apart in the spinner

 

[enrico]

As long as they are straight and strong they stay. No idea how old some of them are! Had to change loads this year as I sealed them up for winter when they were damp from moth spray and the wax went really mouldy. I wouldn't have wanted honey out of them.
E

 

[Swarm]

Years and years and years

 

[Smudger55]

Which method do you use to fumigate your supers and what time of year ?

 

[masterBK]

I still have a few perfectly serviceable super frames (split-tops) from the 1960s which have never had brood in them so comb are not black but deep orange colour. Over the last few decades I wrote the year on the frame tops of all frames when I construct them which prompts me to change brood frames regularly. Also put my initials on them to deter hive rustlers.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I melt down my super frames when they fall apart in the spinner

and sometimes bees get a bit creative when they decide they don't like one bit, take it down and rebuild or the occasional frame gets so packed with pollen even the pollen mites struggle to tackle it and the following year the frame is mostly concrete with usable comb at the edges.
I recall ITTLD talking of using comb that his grandfather had bought second hand before the war and only came out of service when a new extractor he was trialling malfunctioned and trashed the lot.