Hello everyone, beginner's questions here.
I got a fair few frames of honey of varying quality (probably about 20 supers and 6 brood) from the hives I had back in September. However, the hives were at my place of work and I didn't have an extractor, so the honey just sat in the frames. I put the frames in plastic boxes with fitted lids, to prevent anything happening to it.
The autumn and winter came on and unfortunately two of the hives died (no idea why; no signs of disease or varroa, they didn't starve, and they didn't freeze) and the other two upped and left at some point in March.
New colonies arrived last week.
I finally got back to the frames today, but unfortunately there were some beasties in there - moths, larvae, and the frames were covered with spider-web like material. I didn't see any mould, as such, but I can't guarantee I didn't see it.
This honey is, I'm assuming, useless to me. So, two questions...
1. Am I right in saying that I should not extract this honey to eat or to sell?
2. Assuming I shouldn't eat it or sell it, the next best option I can think of is to place them all outside the new hives so that the new colonies can build up their stores. Would there be any problems with doing this?
And I suppose...if I can't do any of those, I also have question 3...what should I do instead?
Thank you!
