I just purchased my first colony to go into my Flow Hive 2.
The colony he brought had more frames in the brood box than my Flow Hive 2
The guy I bought it off is an experienced and known breeder. He helped me transfer the colony into my brood box.
He suggested placing 2 frames into the super to encourage the bees into the super and to start working on the flow frames, which I did. He also suggested removing the old frames from the super after a few days.
As the frames were from a brood box, they have capped honey as well as brood.
My question is, what should I do with the old frames (comb, honey and brood) when I remove them? Any suggestions? It’s not all capped honey, so I can’t harvest it.
Probably 21-24 days so that all the brood will have emerged? If there was drone brood, you’ll want to have an exit above the queen excluder so the drones don’t get trapped.
Since the queen won’t have laid more eggs in those frames above the queen excluder (I am both assuming and suggesting you use a queen excluder) there should no longer be any brood in there after about 3 weeks. At that point you can just remove them and harvest them if there is honey to take. If the honey isn’t capped you could refrigerate it or use it quickly before it ferments. If you have the tools, you could also measure the water content and make a more informed decision.
You could also rough them up a bit and put them under the roof and the bees will more than likely move the honey down into the super as a matter of house cleaning.
I think that’s a good idea what the experienced beekeeper suggested, & it’s what I also suggest. I would leave the brood frames in the honey super (above the QE) until the bees have replaced the brood with sealed honey. When it’s all said & done, there’s no real urgency to install the 2 Flow frames. The longer you leave the brood frames in the honey super, the more likely the bees will work the adjacent Flow frames.
Thanks for the advice. I might do as you suggest and wait a few weeks at least until the brood has hatched.
You’re welcome Sam, just to be pedantic, & more accurate, we say that eggs hatch & bees emerge. It took me a while to get used to the idea of saying “emerge” instead of “hatch”.
I give all the credit to @Dawn_SD for setting us straight in that area.