What to do with crud in sieve

[Jeff Buzz]

I have nearly a bucket of honey and wax along with a few dead bees that I have taken from my sieve on extraction.
How is the best way to give it back to the bees???

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

was it out, melt the wax down and filter it. If you're that concerned about wasting any honey put the lot in a contact feeder and give it back to one of the hives

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

If you buy a nylon straining cloth or similar - a sieve etc will work too - and give it TIME in a warm place of appropriate humidity you should be able to recover a good amount of the honey. I use a solar melter on the balance and use the resulting "cooked" honey to entice bees into feeders etc. Or if you use a double boiler and keep temps down you can recover for "family and friends" honey. Or, and I personally think this is best, spread over a coverboard and inside a super for them to rob it down. Not if hygiene is a possible concern (separate apiaries etc.) though, nor with feeding back recovered honey.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Or, and I personally think this is best, spread over a coverboard and inside a super for them to rob it down. Not if hygiene is a possible concern (separate apiaries etc.) though, nor with feeding back recovered honey.

Now that's going to be a heck of a messy business

 

[Jeff Buzz]

Now that's going to be a heck of a messy business

I have done that before but they make comb with the wax and cannot get to all the honey. I was thinking of washing the honey out and feeding it back now you have convinced me.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

make mead with the washings or just discard - not worth the hassle to do anything else really

 

[Obee1]

I half fill a Tupperware /biscuit box with the sticky remains from the seive and put that in an eke over a crown board with feeder hole. Go back every few days and turn the wax with a spoon so they can access all the honey. After a short while I end up with a box of white flaky dry wax. This is then stored in ziplock bags for later projects.
It is rather time consuming though- but I only do this on the garden hives.

 

[pargyle]

I put crud like this in a rapid feeder without the cone ... about an inch deep they seem to cope with it quite quickly - you do need to keep and eye on it as it sometimes needs easing a bit so that they can get to the honey lower down. Don't pack it in too tight. They really do clean every scrap of honey off it - autumn is a good time to do it when there's a rainy day as it's easy stores for them when they can't get out.

The other thing that you can do is wash it with as little warm water (not hot) as possible - get your fingers into it and stir the crud around - the resultant honey 'syrup' can be re-fed to the bees.

 

[Arfermo]

I put crud like this in a rapid feeder without the cone ... about an inch deep they seem to cope with it quite quickly - you do need to keep and eye on it as it sometimes needs easing a bit so that they can get to the honey lower down. Don't pack it in too tight. They really do clean every scrap of honey off it - autumn is a good time to do it when there's a rainy day as it's easy stores for them when they can't get out.

The other thing that you can do is wash it with as little warm water (not hot) as possible - get your fingers into it and stir the crud around - the resultant honey 'syrup' can be re-fed to the bees.

You can get a lot more of the cappings etc into a Miller/Ashforth feeder!!! If you have any?

 

[pargyle]

You can get a lot more of the cappings etc into a Miller/Ashforth feeder!!! If you have any?

Yes .... quite right ... I've got various sizes of rapid feeders as the hives are in the garden and easy to top up but for cleaning up stuff a big feeder like an Ashforth or a Miller is ideal.