I recently inherited a couple of flow hives from the in-laws. Both hives appear to have froze during our extremely cold winter.
I have cleaned the dead bees and brood from the boxes and frames but am not sure about what to do with the very dark comb and crazy interconnected comb/fames.
Thinking I should cut out all of the dark color comb and interconnected comb or am I going at it the wrong way?
Please let me know how to proceed and prep these hives for the bees coming next month!
Hi & welcome to the forum, Don’t worry about the dark color, as long as the combs all look like the top 2 photos, that have the vast majority of worker cells, all within the confines of the frames. I would cut out all of the interconnected comb, as well as any bur comb on the outside of the frames.
Ideally, you want to look down over the frames, & see very little comb sticking out beyond the top bars.
The dark color is a result of cocoons left behind after bees emerging. It can get very dark without any problems, as long as the %age of worker comb is not compromised.
3 Likes
I’m not sure if you have to, but I’ve seen people use pressure washers to clean plastic frames if you ever want to :).