Hiya Busso, I’d imagine that if you left the frames to warm to room temperature before wrapping them they wouldn’t have gone mouldy. The moisture around the frames when wrapped would have condensed on the cold plastic.
When I removed the frames I put them straight into a storage tub and purged the tub with nitrogen before sealing the lid. I opened them a couple of weeks ago and they seemed to be in the same state as when I put them in. I’m not sure if the moths weren’t active in the cooler temps and am not sure if the uncapped nectar is still OK I after being in an anaerobic environment for a couple of months. They went straight back into the supers and onto the hives. They weren’t drained and had some capped and uncapped cells, a good Spring starter I thought. We’ll see how it goes.
I’ve read about not giving honey to babies under 1yo due to botulism and would wonder what other nasties may have cultured on the frames? @Dawn_SD?
Yes … I do take mine off, inspect, clean (if need only) let dry, then store in large commercial grade garbage bags, seal as best I can n store in a cool dry part of my outside shed. That’s about all I do up here in damp, wet, rainy Seattle/Puget Sound region … they seem to winter over very nicely this method. I seal just incase any minor wax moths might enjoy the cozy winter home. Didn’t have any issues so far (knock on wood as my mom use to say) …
Hope my note is useful… I will be pulling mine end of month (August ) if not before. I do not want my bees storing local English Ivy nectar that tastes weird n crystrizes quickly.
Cheer Bro … now I’m off to set my telescope for the Eclipse !
I think we had this discussion some time ago. I think the answer is probably not much. Some others disagreed with me. As long as the unripe honey doesn’t ferment, you should be fine. I believe that bees do not like fermented honey, and may refuse to clean it up. If it is capped, it won’t ferment, but it may crystallize.
As an aside, people have been storing traditional stickies (spun extracted frames) off hives for years. They can get some mould on them, but usually there is nothing that stops the bees from cleaning them up and using them again 8 or 9 months later. The other major issue is wax moth damage, but there are ways to prevent that.
I was just shaking the water out after washing!
Update: it was surprisingly easy to put it back together. The flow super with these frames is on top of Queen Maya’s brood already. Smeared a bit of their own honeycomb into the frames. We have some gums flowering, nectar frenzy.
Hi, I pulled some frames apart to clean up a bit of mold (gave them a scrub in hot water), they are not hard to put back together once you have the sequence figured out. Cheers.
Hi Jeff, do you get much of an issue with storage mould with your used wooden frames etc? They should be ok shouldn’t they unless they have moisture on them before being put in plastic bags, or if they are stored in a humid place (say a damp basement)? Is it that your climate is so humid that they mould up anyhow? Thanks.
Hi Dan, I have very little trouble with mold. None to speak of. I recently found some in one hive where the bees didn’t touch the top frames for several months. It was somebody else’s hive.
I don’t have to store boxes of empty frames over winter. I only use one brood & one honey super per hive, which I leave on all year round.
I live in South Australia and am new to this forum (& beekeeping). I read a fair bit about mould in flow frames so just a few clarifications.
I have mould in flow frames, in half of them and it covers no more than 25% of each frame. I took flow frames off the hive - hive is very weak on account of drought. Brought them inside, ran one frame through hot water in the tub for about 10 min, lots of stuff came off but there’s still black mould around, though probably a fair bit less. I havent used a brush or anything like that.
My questions:
is this enough cleaning? concerned there’s still black mould around. anything else i can do?
assuming this is all i can do, now what? dry inside for a month as per below threads, then what? i reckon no point putting on hive this summer, beekeepers in South Australia are all feeding the bees this summer - unheard of - and i reckon no excess honey this year for flow frames. so, once dry, should i put in freezer until next year, or should i keep inside dry and safe until next year?
This topic comes up quite a bit. Do a search on “mould” there is a lot of good info.
The way mould develops is with still moist air(and faster with warm air) First Winter I wrapped my frames in plastic to keep the wax moths out and got smacked something terrible with mould. Took a lot of hard work (I did post it somewhere).
My solution is to take the whole super off complete, wrap it in shade cloth to keep the wax moth and other creatures out and put it on a rack with a lot of room underneath to get a good air flow up through the box.
Mind you , having said that I left my super on this year as there was a lot of honey in the frames.
Consensus seems to be that a bit of mould is OK. The bees will clean it up in and around the cells.
