honey with black mold on the frames...

[morpho6 tds.net]

A fellow in Middleton has 2 abandoned bee hives on his property.

One has maybe 20 lbs of honey present (no bees) but the frames & cell caps have a lot of black, slimy looking mold on them & hive beetles are present.  The other hive has remnants of comb present but it looks pretty ugly.  Both hives structurally, look to be in poor shape with some partially decayed wood.  I'm thinking they should both be dismantled, wrapped in plastic, & put with trash... but wanted other opinions. Should some attempt be made to harvest the honey or is that unwise?  What do wiser folks believe is the best course?

[Paul Zelenski]

I wouldn't extract the honey to eat if it were me. But I tend to avoid eating things covered in slimy black mold. If the equipment were in good shape, you could probably give it to other bees and they would clean it up. But, I'd be a bit worried that some of the stuff that looks like mold is disease. If it's all rotting anyway, I'd just burn it. 

On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 1:26 PM, morpho6 tds.net <mor...@tds.net> wrote:

A fellow in Middleton has 2 abandoned bee hives on his property.

One has maybe 20 lbs of honey present (no bees) but the frames & cell caps have a lot of black, slimy looking mold on them & hive beetles are present.  The other hive has remnants of comb present but it looks pretty ugly.  Both hives structurally, look to be in poor shape with some partially decayed wood.  I'm thinking they should both be dismantled, wrapped in plastic, & put with trash... but wanted other opinions. Should some attempt be made to harvest the honey or is that unwise?  What do wiser folks believe is the best course?

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[marcus finnley]

I have some mold in one of my hives. My bees are cleaning it slowly. I
had a ventilation problem this winter.

This doesn't sound like anything serious enough to destroy hive bodies.
I'd separate them and place them in the sun, when we have some, and prop
them up for good air flow. As for your honey, I'd have to see it to
come up with an opinion, but something to keep in mind, hydrogen
peroxide can be used in the place of bleach to kill mold. It decomposes
into water and oxygen fairly rapidly so there is no lasting effect.
Bleach is a bit harsher and it is made up of chloride salts, I should
know what it decomposes to, but I've forgotten. I hope this information
is helpful.