crystallized honey in the frame

[yolanda huang]

Out. of an abundance of caution, I froze some frames of honey - worried that I had hive beetles.

A lot of that honey is now crystallized.    What should I do with it?

1) save it and feed it to the bees come winter?

2) put it into my brood box and let the bees eat and clean it?

3) other?

Thanks,

[Gerald Przybylski]

Generally, freezing doesn't cause honey to granulate.
Honey granulates  when stored at a temperature around 50ºF.

So most likely the granuated honey in the frames was there before the
frames were frozen.
Taste one of the pellets of granulated. If it's a little like
caught-syrup, then it's ivy honey which is naturally high in glucose.

Sung puts a granulated honey frame with a newly collected swarm. He
expects them to clean it out by fall.
I think he's convinced the bees use it up rather than chewing it out and
throwing it out with the trash.  Difficult to prove either way.

I uncap the granulated frames, and mist one or two at a time. Then park
them in a box above the inner cover of a strong hive.
I expect the the bees will lick out the sweet water, and use it to raise
brood, or will mix it with the honey they're making.
Mist every day.  Before misting, shake out any liquid in the cells out
onto the top of the inner cover for the bees to clean up.
A moderately granulated frame can be cleaned out in  a week or so.
The thing is, these warm, wet conditions are good for growing more SHB
larva, so any granulated frames should be frozen for 48 hours before
using this method.
Keep an eye out for squirmy little larva anyway.

I've read on this list that some beeks uncap granulated frames, and soak
them in warm water to dissolve the sugar.
They shake the sweet water and pellets out, or spin the frames out, and
rinse the frames.
Dry them before storing them.
The sweet liquid can go into the flower bed or lawn.

At a workshop Randy Oliver described a double-length bottom-board with a
raised rim 16-1/4" wide, and 41-1/2" length, with a 1-1/2" wide strip
dividing the top in two.
The healthy colony resides in front;  wet frames go into the box on the
back side of the bottom-board.
Bees walk from the front hive (home) to the back half (the foreign hive)
which they are delighted to rob out.
Granulated frames go in the back half.  Unless you mist them, the bees
will just leave the granulated frame on the back alone. See precautions
above.

For someone with no time at all to fool around,  pop plastic foundations
out of frames and install new ones.
Bag the foundations and discard into the landfill trash. (you can't
recycle those plastic foundations)
I use foundationless frames, so if I were doing this I'd just cut out
the granulated parts, or all the comb in those frames.
I'm retired, so I don't do this.

That's my 2¢

[Robert Silverstein]

I agree with Jerry’s last solution. For me, the time and effort needed to salvage granulated honey frames isn’t worth it. I punch the foundation out and put in new foundation. I paint the foundation with extra wax and move on…

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[J R]

I scrape it melt it at low temp and let them have it back as food but most of the time i count my losses 

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 16, 2026, at 11:04 AM, Robert Silverstein <roberts...@gmail.com> wrote:



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