Care of Apideas

[Kate Atchley]

Time to fight my way through, and deal with, the assorted kit piled up after the beekeeping season. What's the best method of cleaning used Apideas?

Maybe gentle scraping and washing soda solution? What strength? I've read of sterilising with a bleach solution but is that really necessary after the caustic soda? If so, what strength?

I was thinking of cutting away dirtied or broken comb from the Apidea frames but otherwise leaving them drawn and ready for next year. Any improvements on that?

Shame on me but hoping for rainy day tomorrow so I am not tempted to go forage for yet another great basket of hedgehog mushrooms and winter chanterelles! IMG_2691 - Version 2.jpg

Kate

[Jon]

I gently scrape off all the wax and propolis.
I put everything in a sealed plastic container and fumigate with 80% acetic acid for a week.
Virkon is also good for killing disease organisms but not for use on the combs.
When starting next season, I leave the comb nearest the feeder intact and I cut back the two at the front to about half way so there is room to put in a scoop full of bees through the floor.
Any comb really black and manky gets discarded but I don't see why they should start drawing comb from scratch every year.

[Kate Atchley]

Sounds good to me Jon. Much happier to used acetic acid than bleach for cleansing. I use it for the drawn supers anyway.

I hadn't thought about the need to make space to tip the bees in pdq. A useful tip, thanks.

[gavin]

Now you're showing off! Hedgehog mushrooms I know, though rarely find, but I don't know winter chanterelles. Are they as tasty as regular chanterelles?

Washing soda (not caustic) will clean off the hive parts quite well and if you want Apideas that look clean that will do the job. No need for caustic which is used for hives known to be contaminated with nasty stuff such as foulbrood. I'll be following Jon's suggestion for the better quality comb but ditch the brown stuff. I usually fumigate any half-decent comb (as long as it is empty) on full frames for next season's bait hives and spare boxes anyway.

[Kate Atchley]

Now you're showing off! Hedgehog mushrooms I know, though rarely find, but I don't know winter chanterelles. Are they as tasty as regular chanterelles?

Winter chanterelle ... not the favourite fungi of folk with bad backs as they're tasty but tiny so you need to pick lots (see LH pile in basket above). They're beautiful dried whole and resurrected in risotto if you have any to spare. I found a great patch of them in the woods opposite the house and seem to be the only taker (me and the slugs that is).

[Linco49]

Winter chanterelle ... not the favourite fungi of folk with bad backs as they're tasty but tiny so you need to pick lots (see LH pile in basket above). They're beautiful dried whole and resurrected in risotto if you have any to spare. I found a great patch of them in the woods opposite the house and seem to be the only taker (me and the slugs that is).

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[susbees]

Any comb really black and manky gets discarded but I don't see why they should start drawing comb from scratch every year.

I leave them with one each but like to keep combs in apideas really fresh. As for the cleaning, erm, not started yet but sealed up against moth. I have a large storage tub with lid and the scraped boxes are dunked in washing soda for a couple of days before rinsing. The little bits go in the standard soda bucket.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Kate
propolis doesn't dissolve easily but surgical spirit is pretty good

[Poly Hive]

Bernard was very keen that baby nucs SHOULD start the season on a foundation strip. He believed that it helped make a cohesive colony esp when as is often the case there are multiple colonies as doners so there are various families in the mini unit, and that it mimiced natural behaviour as in a cast would have to do just that. And of course there is the hygiene aspect. A clean start.

PH

[Jon]

80% acetic acid fumigation on comb = a clean start. AFB is about the only thing it wont kill.
An apidea full of bees is much less than your average cast and the bees struggle to draw comb if the weather is wet or cool.
Also, an apidea is filled with bees shaken from a colony and is more akin to a bunch of bees who have just found themselves queenless as opposed to the bees in a cast.
Giving an apidea at least one comb very much helps it.
And lest we forget, you can get a second or a third queen from a single apidea in a season and these ones are starting with comb drawn by the initial group of bees. You remove the mated queen and add a queen cell or a virgin to an apidea with bees comb and brood.

The Mobus/Bibba book 'mating in miniature (1983) is very dated and suffers from the common fault of making everything seem ten times more complicated than it has to be.

The equipment he is using which predates Apideas is archaic and massively over-engineered.