# dead brood in frame with honey - how to harvest safely



## silvergirl (Jul 30, 2006)

I lost a hive this winter - there was plenty of honey, so I don't know what happened. It was a new hive, but they had done an excellent job of putting up honey in both the brood chamber and the shallow super above it. In checking the frames, there is still tons of honey in the brood chamber but there is also capped comb with dead brood inside... they are slimy and decomposed - I checked - and scraped off those cells on that one frame. What is the safest/best way to harvest the remaining honey on the other frames? 

There are very few capped brood cells on the other frames. It is like almost all the brood hatched out over the winter and died. We didn't even have a particularly cold winter, so I don't understand why. But I am new(ish) to bee keeping so there is a lot I don't know.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Just cut the honey cell out and crush it, then strain.

 Al


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## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

Al, can you put the frames in a deep and place it on an active hive and let the workers clean out the dead bees? Use an excluder to keep the queen out. ????


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

K9 Yes that could be done but here in Michigan with nothing coming in the bees would make use of the honey also.

 Al


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## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

Thanks Al, yes I understand that they will use the honey if they need it, but if they have sufficient stores on their own than you could just let them clean things up.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

LOL, * "but if they have sufficient stores on their own than you could just let them clean things up"*

But the bees may not like where the honey is so while cleaning the dead brood out they move the honey to a different location. Had the buggers do it with a medium honey super I had left for them to cap. they just moved it all in a week.

 Al


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## silvergirl (Jul 30, 2006)

I have seen my remaining hive bees cleaning out the frames - they've emptied one of them, but there is a lot more, so I will take that out tomorrow and harvest. I cleaned out the dead brood and it looks good to harvest the rest now. I was worried that I should prevent the bees from taking the left over honey - bee keepers always advise not to feed honey to wintering bees because of the possibility of cross contamination. Any concerns around this from you guys?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Honey from your dead out bee hive going to your remaining colonies are no problem.
As long as you do not have a worry about how the dead out died.

If you had a worry about how a dead out colony died sent a sample of the bees to the USDA bee lab a free service and the address is in a sticky post above.

 Al


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