# bee not capping honey



## farmgirl6 (May 20, 2011)

have had the very devil of a year with my bees between fields being sprayed and kill offs and hive beetles destroying hives, it has been a nightmare...I have one beast of a hive left, very strong, two deeps and three honey supers on top, have been checking every two weeks or so, lots of honey put up, but they just are not capping it! had one capped frame today, and one a little bit capped, pulled because I can't spin just one and when I shook it no honey flew out so pretty dry, but after extracting just to be safe put in dehydrator for a while and will test before putting lids on. so whats up? I tested the uncapped, like 21 - 22%....I don't know if I should take frames from the top deep, they looked cap, have found lots of brood in there, so much the hive was aggressive so I took four of brood and honey and started another slow split, which seems to be chugging along...so why not capping?


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## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

Don't know where you are, but wondering if with all the rain, the honey isn't drying down to the percent they want before capping it.

You might want to lift the lid and have the lid propped up with a popsicle stick or something like that that will leave more air flow through the hive.


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## FarmFamily (Feb 12, 2014)

I agree. They aren't going to cap it if it has too much moisture. Once they get it dried out they'll cap it.


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