Flow frames with honey but bees are gone

Beekeeping - Basics
1

After doing our first harvest things seemed normal, bees active and back at work. Then apparently they swarmed, no bees at all. My question is can I freeze the flow frames with capped and uncapped honey to give a new hive a head start in the spring? If that’s not advisable then whats the best way to clean the frames?

2

Hello and welcome to the Flow forum! :wink:

Yes, you can certainly do that as long as there are no signs of infectious disease (like AFB, EFB etc). A new colony would love it.

My concern is your description of honey stores left behind, but no bees. Have you done any accurate Varroa mite counts using sugar roll or alcohol wash tests? Visual inspection is not good enough, and sticky board counts are also unreliable unless done in a very specific manner. Did you treat for Varroa? If so, when, with what, and how often? I am also in California, and Varroa is endemic here. I have never had a season when I did not need to treat. Varroa is the most common cause of late fall or overwinter loss. Here is a very good article which explains the signs. You may find some of them on your frames, if you are interested:

https://beeinformed.org/2016/03/08/why-did-my-honey-bees-die/

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I agree with everything that @Dawn_SD has said, including "welcome to the forum! :slight_smile: ".

My question is: How long between harvesting & the swarm?, which sounds more like an absconding, which happens when the whole colony leaves. I have seen situations where people harvest flow honey, which can flood onto the brood, triggering a hive beetle slime out, which in turn causes the whole colony to abscond, on account that hive beetle slime is a bee repellent.

Another question is: what do the brood frames look like?

Love you @Dawn_SD :heart_eyes:

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Thank you for responding Jeff.
How can I guard against this beetle if I use the flow hive super?thanks
Cindy & Dave

5

You’re welcome Cindy. I don’t really understand your question.

I think at this stage, you should stick with freezing the flow frames, provided the hive didn’t succumb to an infectious disease, as Dawn suggested.

Re hive beetles going forward: Avoid major honey spills onto the brood, keep the drone population down, don’t leave any trapped or squashed bees between combs, as well as make sure there is ample worker bees covering any frames containing brood or pollen.