My bees left my hive this spring. I also left the flow super on during winter. I live in NY USA. My middle 4 frames are full with honey. What should I do harvest it, waste it or let the bees clean it out when I get my nucs, will they clean it up? 2nd year keeping bees.
Welcome to the forum and condolences for your loss. I suggest harvesting and cleaning. Feeding honey to bees is high risk for spreading AFB. Check with local beeks about leaving Flow supers on over winter. We can in my mild part of the world, but harsh winters might not be advisable. Do you have any clues as to why they absconded? Pests?
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Welcome, and ditto to what Mike said. As a semi-local beek here in PA, I remove my Flow supers in fall after a last harvest. There’s a wealth of info about doing that here, just search ‘overwintering’ or ‘should I leave my Flow supers on’. When do your new nucs come?
My nucs are coming soon this or next week. Is the honey safe for human consumption if over wintered? I have no idea why they left I see no signs of pests but again I’m new at this. In my brood boxes is also honey, does that also need to be discarded? I’m confused on this don’t they eat the honey stores over the winter? Why not in the spring?
Yes, but it may be granulated or if it was uncapped, it could be fermented. There are some threads about harvesting granulated honey (mostly gentle warming and then harvesting).
If there was no sign of disease (why did your bees die?) then I think it is ok to provide your nucs with some drawn comb, including comb that has some honey but you don’t want to give a weak colony too much to defend.
Feeding your own honey to your own colonies in the same equipment and apiary probably doesn’t increase your risk of AFB.
They do, if they have access. If your queen excluder was on, the queen wouldn’t have been able to go up into the super to join the cluster and may have frozen. Sometimes bees die one frame over from a frame of honey if they cannot spread the cluster and move over on a warmish day. Some argue this is a good justification for insulating even the strongest colonies, expanding their range within the brood box.
There are all kinds of theories about why bees die over winter, only sometimes is it starvation, even in cold places. Varroa and other diseases prevent an afflicted colony from making it though a cold winter like in upstate NY.
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If you can, post some pics of the brood frames for us and we may be able to help you understand why your colony failed (or absconded). What was your varroa mite management strategy last season?
I agree with Alok, save your drawn comb for reuse as long as there was nothing transmittable at play. But - freeze them first for 24-48 hours to kill off pest eggs that might be there, such as wax moths.