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I tried leaving empty combs out for bees to remove any honey. That amounted to a royal receipe for robbing. With 10 colonies doing the robbing, it was 5 days of madness, not to mention the destruction of the cells into piles of wax frass, including the foundation wax. Instead, I built a bee and bug tight shed large enough to store empty, cleaned combs in supers for 40 medium boxes. It was important to caulk any potential openings and seal a tight door way. After the combs were extracted and when bees were done collecting nectar, I would place 2 or 3 boxes of wet combs onto a cover board and let the bees get into the combs. They would clean out any honey, move it down into the deep combs to store before winter. There was no intent for robbing, though I taped all crackes and holes. While there was still decent fall weather, I could pull off the dry combs, with no bees, put in the super shed, seal the whole thing up over winter and be ready with supers by summer flow.
That's a great idea! Sunlight and air flow is perhaps the best prescription against wax moths. Storing frames in open air sheds are an old-timey storage method in parts of Europe; they sometimes dust them with wood ash too.
Looks like that just may work. I do not know where you live an what kind of weather you have but I think I would make the plastic higher in the center so snow an rain can run off each end . So it doesn’t brake the plastic. Just a thought. Thanks
Unfortunately, this won't work in my area. The rats and squirrels will have quite a picnic out of the comb. By Spring, I'd have nothing left but empty wooden frames.
@@tinacalifano5023 Not in my experience. We're pushing 100 degrees here in the Missouri Ozarks with pretty intense sun and the combs are doing just fine. Don't forget, the bees keep the hive 95 degrees.
We've actually built 3 of these. This first one was built outside an electric fence and the next two we built inside the fence we put up after the bear destroyed most of the apiary about a year ago.
In conjunction with spraying BT on them, yes. As others have mentioned, and our mentors have explained to us, other animals pose potential threats as well. We have placed cardboard down for weed suppression. This may have an added benefit of keeping critters away by making a physical barrier that they won't like stepping on and will make them feel exposed and out in the open. Just a thought we might make another video on.
Interesting idea, unfortunateley it is against the law here in Sweden because of the risk of spreading disease. All bee equipment must be baged and stored in a safe manner. It is not e en allowed to leaveout any equipment with honey for bees to clean.
We haven't noticed any wax melting but it doesn't get very hot here in the Ozarks. The whole thing is open to the breeze so it doesn't hold any heat that might be generated by the sun going through the plastic.
Thanks for the question. We've had no issues with any small creatures getting at the frames. We store them completely empty. No dead brood, no honey or nectar residue, and no pollen.
