fermented honey

[Archie]

A friend of mine had two hives but never worked them.  For two years they survived and made plenty of honey.  The two deeps are full and two med supers full. This year the bees did not survive the winter.  He did not buy new bees and just left the hives sit there.

I went to his house today to abscond the two hives and found that some of the honey has fermented.  Boy does that stuff stink!!! There is a lot of old pollen in the comb as well. One hive had some bees robbing the honey the other was bee free...

My question is, will the fermented honey hurt my bees?  I was thinking of putting the supers on my hives and let the bees clean them out.

Archie

[mattoleriver]

I went to his house today to abscond the two hives and found that some of the honey has fermented. Boy does that stuff stink!!!

I hope it doesn't smell as bad as AFB!
George

[Archie]

nope,  it just smells like bad batch of booze

[EOHenry]

I bought a hive thru Ebay that sat empty of bees and smelled of fermented honey.  Took it home and added it (2 brood and 1 honey super) on top of my new brood super.  There were a couple of broken frames of honey that I set near the hive and the bees cleaned them off in two days. Then I repaired them.  After 3 weeks , I went into the hive to ck how they were doing.  The queen had taken over the 1st new brood super and was laying like crazy. The other two supers were being cleaned up of old honey and new honey was already being put into the old cells. So it appears the bees were able and willing to clean up the old hive just fine.  I did not think I would get to harvest any honey this year, but now I think I'll be able to take alittle.
Yes, it did smell in van on two hour trip home.   Stopped and bought air freshener on way and only helped alittle.
Good Luck!!

[Phoenix]

My question is, will the fermented honey hurt my bees?  I was thinking of putting the supers on my hives and let the bees clean them out.

Archie

New honey contains 1 to 5 mg/kg Hydroxy-Methyl-Furfural. When honey is being stored at 68°F the HMF content will raise ±1 mg/kg per month. Only the fructose in the honey will become HMF. So the rise is dependent on the kind of honey. Heating the honey will raise HMF contents rapidly. The longer and/or hotter it is heated, the higher the HMF will become.

For humans, HMF is harmless.
FOR BEES, IT IS A POISONOUS DRUG.
So don't feed old honey to the bees...

Phoenix

[BigRog]

Good post

[ehenry]

I have had my new (old hives) on top of my new hive for 3-4 weeks and the colony seems to be thriving.  They are cleaning up the old honey and making new in place of it.  What are the symptoms of bee poisoning?  Maybe the old honey wasn't that old yet as it was just from last seasons crop according to my seller.