What To Do With A Dead Beehive?

BEEKEEPERSTIPS.COM

What to do with a dead beehive? If you run through this simple diagnostic, you can work out what to do with a dead beehive.

Diseases, starvation, poison, over predation by insects, a lack of water, and extreme temperature are the main causes of hive death.

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When a bear or a baboon or honey badger or rogue human has raided your hive the source of hive death is clear, and there will be very little left of the hive.

Why Do Hives Die?

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In terms of working out what to do with a dead beehive, it is best to start with the most dangerous causes and work backward to the least dangerous causes.

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Poison

You get pesticides applied to flowers that contaminate the nectar and pollen.

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What To Do With A Hive That Has Been Poisoned:

Poisons are just nasty chemicals – even if you eat the honey and are fine, you do risk giving yourself long-term problems such as certain cancers and so on. 

Bacterial Diseases - American Foul Brood - European Foul Brood - Varroa Mites Caused A Hive To Die - Small Hive Beetles Caused A Hive To Die

Diseases and Pests

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The Bees Froze Or Suffocated

Open the hive up – the cluster will be largely intact but dead. Shake the dead bees into a bucket. 

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Can I Put New Bees In An Old Hive?

Place new combs in the box and the bees will be ok. If the hive had AFB you probably burnt it – so the answer there is no. 

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Fermenting Honey To Process It Into Other Products

Mead – Fermented honey is called mead. Mead for distilling - Mix your honey and water. Adjust the density (weight per unit volume) using a hydrometer. 

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ADVICE

Knowing what to do with honey from a dead hive is important and now you can decide whether you need to destroy the honey, eat it or make mead!! And of course, if the hive is cleaned up the right way you can put new bees in an old hive.

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