BBKA Forum

Last year I was given 2 swarms, my first bees, and nice ones luckily! The first is doing well, a question about them later. The second rather small probably a caste. It was decided to see how they went. They survived until February
I'm cleaning out the hive, no signs of disease, lots of stored syrup not really any pollen, so maybe I should have added some candy sooner. Anyway, I know it's best not to use the syrup for bees, but could I use it for cooking with, bottling or crystallising? It seems a shame to waste it.
So it was an interesting sticky afternoon learning to deal with comb, and at least I will have some wax out of it.
Also could the brood comb be used to make fire lighters?
I'm loving keeping bees at long last

Hi Gill

Did the swarm draw out the brood comb? As long as it’s not black and battered then I wouldn’t necessarily burn it. If it’s reasonable you could use it to establish a bait hive to pick up a swarm maybe? They may start turning up in the next few weeks. Putting on more candy wouldn’t have saved the small colony if they already had unused syrup frames. It may be simply virgin queen failure or too small to overwinter and they dwindled. Don’t forget if the other one is a prime swarm then the queen is only “new” to you and may well try to swarm out again this spring - those spare combs and syrup frames would set up an Artificial Swarm second colony very well?

As regards the syrup frames, it’s not honey but mainly concentrated sucrose so would just taste very sweet. Lots of options as to what to do with them. You could pop them in the deep freeze if you have room ready for use and keep them safe or give them back to your good hive in the autumn.

Glad to hear you are enjoying your bees!

GillB wrote: ↑

24 Mar 2020, 16:57

Also could the brood comb be used to make fire lighters?

I wouldn't recommend it because, apart from being a resource you could better use elsewhere, my experience of burning old comb is that only so much burns, the rest melts and would leave a real mess in your fireplace

If a small colony died over winter, it's unlikley to have disease so I would not be too worried about reusing stores in comb.
Sometimes colonies will become too small to survive cold nights in a big hive or can't move to obtain food from elsewhere in the hive (bees with their heads in the cells is a sign of starvation). Bees with deformed wings is a sign of varroa damage.

Old dry wax is good for lighting fires/chimnea. If you store it for use in the summer, don't let it become a breeding ground for wax month (as I have done - never again!).