How will I get the bees to remove the honey?

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Jimy Dee

House Bee
Joined
Mar 2, 2014
Messages
270
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Location
Ireland
Hive Type
Commercial
Number of Hives
6
I had a double nuc that had wild cross comb running across 2 frames, so 3 days ago I decided to sort it out and put the whole lot into a normal brood box (commercial) and take out the wild cross comb.

When I got stuck into the hive was messier than I originally expected and I had a good amount of cross comb and brace comb containing honey, which I removed from the hive. Not to waste the latter I put a small piece of plywood on top of the brood frames and put these “wild” bits and pieces of cross / brace comb containing honey on top of the frames. I put on a second empty brood box to accommodate the recycling of the honey. My expectation was that the bees would go up above their brood frames and take all the honey from these bits and scraps of wild comb containing honey and take the honey back down into the brood frames below. I inspected the hive this evening and my bees were lazily climbing all over these bits and scraps of comb “up stairs” and they had not removed or relocated any of the honey! There is a glorious ivy flow booming at the moment and the apiary is humming loudly with bees during the day times.

My question - how will I get the bees to take the honey from the cross/brace comb? There is a good bit of honey in it and I want the bees to get the benefit of it.
 
Don't give them more space to build wild comb!

If it were me I would make sure the honey is exposed i.e. if it's capped, scratch or remove the cappings and place it in a feeder on the hive.

Just like I do with all my cappings after extraction. They soon clean up the wax and remove every last drop of honey!
 
Yes, honey is capped. Thanks for the advise - I will scrape the cappings off and feed it back to them. What a great forum.
 
Yes, honey is capped. Thanks for the advise - I will scrape the cappings off and feed it back to them. What a great forum.

No need to spend your time fiddling with the cappings, just crush the comb and put it all in a feeder. They'll take the honey as it drains out.
 
No need to spend your time fiddling with the cappings, just crush the comb and put it all in a feeder. They'll take the honey as it drains out.

Beat me to it ... that's the way, they'll have it out in no time. I just use a rapid feeder with the cone removed ... easy.
 
... I put a small piece of plywood on top of the brood frames and put these “wild” bits and pieces of cross / brace comb containing honey on top of the frames. ...

Perhaps they still think of that honey as being part of their hive. It might be better if you put the honey above a feeder board (a crown board with the feeder hole open).
 

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