Hi all… After my swarms from the flow hive I was concerned about the colony’s ability to guard the extra space in the flowbox so I took off the super, harvested the frames in the kitchen and popped them into a fridge until the colony built up again. Today I put them back on and when checking that the cells were closed, the flow key came out wet with honey. I don’t know if some of the frames were inadvertently stored upside down in the fridge and I’m now concerned that honey in that space,which is not accessible to the bees, may ferment, drip down and contaminate the fresh nectar they may store.
I have seen a bit of honey in the bottom harvesting channels and I have wrapped a paper towel around the flow key and pushed it in and out a few times to clean it out so I will try that. Anyone with any experience or other ideas of what to do? @Forum_Support
If it is fully ripened honey, it wouldn’t ferment, would it? Still it does sound like a pain. Maybe you can find or rig up a spray bottle with a long thin tube attachment and be able to direct a thin, strong stream of water far enough into the upper channel? Either that or bring the frames to your dentist
After thinking about it for a while I consoled myself with the fact that it should have been ripe enough to not ferment. My daughter suggested I sew a skinny tube of absorbent fabric and push the flow key into it then use that to poke around and hopefully collect as much of the sticky stuff as possible. I’ll give that a try.
