Storing equipment in the off-season: Now, what to do with all those empty honey supers?

摘要

Here you are, counting your blessings after another successful year with the honey bees. Your honey is all harvested and extracted, the extracting equipment has been cleaned up. Now, what to do with all those empty honey supers? The combs are wet withhoney left over from the extracting process. Some beekeepers will leave them outside so that their bees can clean up the left-overs. This works pretty well although it can stimulate the bees robbing instincts. This is not typically a major problem unless one or more nearby colonies are too weak to defend themselves from the inevitable robbers that will try to enter their hive looking for an easy source of honey. Leaving extracted combs out is not very efficient in terms of feeding since many other local bees, wasps, hornets, etc, will also help themselves to the left-over honey on the combs. In addition, the combs may become the targets of critters such as wax moths, small hive beetles, and mice among others.