I guess I was a bit too excited after harvesting my first honey from my flowhive and I forgot to re-install the caps on the honey trough. Now, I have a honey trough full of bees cleaning up the residual honey after extraction and…after 2 days…can’t seem to get them out. Any suggestions?
Hi Roger, they can die in the tube if they drown in the honey (speaking from experience on this one). If so the dead bees would probably need to be removed with a modified bottle brush and then the tube cleaned with warm water, ideally following removal of the Flow frame from the hive.
Generally, I guess eventually they will eat the honey and on a cooler night should fly back into the hive proper so you can cap them again. Be very careful if peering into the tubes as the bees can fly out suddenly.
Just clean out all the dead bees once the honey is gone.
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Thanks…so far there are no dead or bees it there as far as I can tell…just lots of them busily tidying up. Wondering whether there is some seepage that is keeping them interested. Will keep watching.
I was worried that keeping the front wooden panel off the hive would cause problems for the rest of the hive…if I close it up then I will certainly have many dead bees that were trapped inside.
Hi Roger…yes, that is one of the problems. There is a bit of dripping for a while after the frames are closed following harvest and they will keep coming at it until it is completely gone.