Re-using Flow Hive supers with a little Mildew

Introductions
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Greetings! I live in Northern California and have 6 years of experience with traditional Langstroth hives. After an 8 year pause I was gifted a Flow Hive! I used it for a season and didn’t pay attention to it…and the bees were robbed and killed. :sad_but_relieved_face:

Now 2 years have passed and I am back into beekeeping! I cleaned up the whole hive before bringing home a new set of bees. Some of my plastic flow hives frames had a little mildew on them so I pressure washed it. I introduced a box of bees plus a caged queen 8 weeks ago and have waited until comb was drawn out on all of the frames before adding the flow hive super. Added today!

How long will it take for the bees to climb into the flow super? I sprayed some sugar water on them as enticement. I am concerned the bees won’t like the mildew. The mildew is visible in the observation window, no bees have checked it out in the 3 hours since added it… and I am feeling like an irresponsible parent for not giving them a better environment!

Whatever feedback or reassurance you can give is greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

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Don’t worry, they won’t care. Can you imagine how much mildew there probably is inside old hollow trees? They still use them. They will clean them up when there is enough nectar flow. They may use them faster if you can put a few blobs of burr comb from the hive onto the plastic frames. :wink:

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