Crystal Honey or Hive Beetle Eggs?

Realised my flow frames were starting to fill up yesterday. Went to lift up the top box but wasn’t getting anywhere, pretty heavy. So i decided to do my first extraction on one of the frames. Towards the end of this i noticed that a few of the other frames were pooling a small bit of honey in their tubes below the frames.
In two of them i noticed these crystal like structures. Like grains of salt in a way, littered withing the pooling honey.

I think by attempting to crack off the top box i may have dislodged some of the cappings in the flow frames and cause them to leak a bit. But i’m not sure what these white things are. Whether they are pieces of wax, crystallized honey, or my worst fear being, hive beetle eggs.

I know that i do have hive beetles. As on my bottom board that day i found 1 or 2 larvae crawling around. But they haven’t been seen as much of a problem as of yet.

If anyone would have any insight onto what the salt looking things are, it would be much appreciated.

These are the residuals accumulated over time. I would clean them out before turning the tap… I used a Chux cloth wet in warm water with the L key to scrub and wiggling all the way to the end.

Congrats on the harvest, hopefully mine will be in 2 weeks and can’t wait for the 1st one of the season. IMG20181025105530 IMG20181025105507

4 Likes

Taste the honey and you’ll know right away. If it tastes good, just filter it.

3 Likes

Crystallized honey or wax fragments are the most likely. If you put some in a glass of water, you would know - if it floats, it is wax, if it sinks, then you have sugar crystals. I don’t believe that they are SHB eggs, as beetles far prefer to lay in dead bees or bee larvae, not in honey supers.

I agree with @Chislen, clean out the channel with a damp cloth or a bottle brush and warm water. When you drain the frame, just strain the honey through a fine sieve if needed.

2 Likes