[Q] Feeding previous stores...

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RoseCottage

Field Bee
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
718
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Location
Near Andover, UK
Hive Type
WBC
Number of Hives
From 5 to 2 and hopefully a better year
Last year my girls filled two supers with sugar syrup and a brood box with honey. They survived winter and had lots of stores left. So I removed these in March and stored them in airtight boxes.

Is it safe to feed these to the girls this winter? When I took them off they were ok and when I looked at them earlier today there was dripping honey/sugar syrup in them and no sign of mold etc.

OR

Should I just bin this and feed fresh?
All the best,
Sam
 
Last year my girls filled two supers with sugar syrup and a brood box with honey. They survived winter and had lots of stores left. So I removed these in March and stored them in airtight boxes.

Is it safe to feed these to the girls this winter? When I took them off they were ok and when I looked at them earlier today there was dripping honey/sugar syrup in them and no sign of mold etc.

OR

Should I just bin this and feed fresh?
All the best,
Sam

if it was capped honey or capped syrup then ok, but the dripping worries me, yeasts and honey/sugar with more than 20% water will ferment and alcohol is posionous to your bees----could you spinn off the thin syrup and feed whats left, otherwise do not fee them it back
 
At this time of year they'll deal with any weeping stores very quickly without taxing them too much . I'd just bung it on and let them tidy it up
 
You could heat to 85'C, hold 5 mins, cool and then re-feed, perhaps diluting into syrup whilst warm if you wanted to utilise it.
 
You could heat to 85'C, hold 5 mins, cool and then re-feed, perhaps diluting into syrup whilst warm if you wanted to utilise it.

Not much good for all that drawn comb
 
Absolutely agree with you there MBC - unless you combined feeding prep with a candle making session :laughing-smiley-004

I was picking up on Muswells comment about extraction "----could you spin off the thin syrup and feed whats left, otherwise do not fee them it back "

and providing a 'build' on the proposal that would knock out any viable residual Y&M cells.
 
there was dripping honey/sugar
A small amount of dripping liquid is normal in stored supers. Most of us don't store them for 6 months before extracting. If it looks OK then let them enjoy it.
 

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