Weeping honey - salvageable?

[Jill Lambie-ponce]

I inspected a collapsed hive today that has a lot of capped honey in it. I saw a hive beetle and the frames of capped honey are ‘weeping’, but not yet sliming out. Can it be saved/consumed at this stage? How can you tell when it’s too late?

Thanks!
Jill Lambie

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[Danny Williamson]

Do you have a picture of the frame? Is it wax or plastic foundation? 

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[Gerald Przybylski]

If you see any tiny larva crawling around those frames you probably have
a small hive beetle issue.  With shb you gave a lot of little wiggly
larva.  Wax moth, fewer bigger larva.
Get those frames into the freezer as soon as you can.  (put them in
plastic bags so they don't make a mess in the freezer)
48 hours below 0ºF kills all stages of small hive beetle and wax moth,
and probably Australian sap beetle too.

Once you've done that, get them onto a strong hive.  The bees will clean
them up.
Look them over in a week, and harvest them if you think they are now OK.

A worst case recovery is to get the bees to move the honey up out of
those frames.
Uncap one or two frames and put them into a box UNDER the brood ball.
The experts say the bees will will move uncapped honey from below the
brood ball up into the supers.
If they don't cooperate now during the nectar flow, try this trick
during the Dearth in August.

Good luck.
That's my ¢
jerry


On 3/14/26 8:20 PM, 'Jill Lambie-ponce' via The Alameda County

[Danny Williamson]

Anyways I have had capped honey frames that were affected by the hive beetle before and it was salvagable and safe to extract and consume since I got to the frames early enough before the beetles layed to many hive beetle larvae's in the cells and damage the honey making a strong fermented smell and a sliming mess. That's why I like to see a picture up close if you can. But then it's hard to sometimes tell in a picture because the larva can be hidden in different areas since they are very small. And if your using plastic foundation frames and the honey is not salvagable just uncap it and sling it out in the extractor after you do your salvagable honey that's not affected by the hive beetles first so you can wash out the extractor after. And for wax foundation if the hive beetles have damaged the wax foundation to much then you will need to replace the foundation versus plastic the bees will clean out the cells but after freeze them like Jerry mentioned. Then you can wash them with a hose after you take them out of the freezer and they are thawed out  first before putting them back in the hive giving the bees a fresh start and less to clean up which I have done with success. Well I hope this helps out and you can save the honey.  

[Jill Lambie-ponce]

Hey Danny, thanks for all that info. I went back this morning and dismantled the hive. There were about a half dozen frames on one side of the hive that were very wet and definitely slimy. The others looked decent - it was cooler and they weren’t weeping anymore. At any rate, all went in the freezer for now. I think they’re all wax foundation. The slimy ones may end up in the compost. I’ll have to take a closer look at the others. I definitely saw some eggs in some of the frames, but some of those might be wax moth eggs as well. Will inspect closely for signs of any actual larvae. 

Caught this hive just in time. The queen was still in there with a handful of loyal caretakers; she’s about to go into a nuc and we’ll see how she does. I think this was a mite crash, so the queen might very well still be good to go.

 

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On Mar 14, 2026, at 11:31 PM, Danny Williamson <bmovi...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Danny Williamson]

Hey Jill you're welcome! Yeah I've had frames like the first picture before and there were no hive beetles it was because there was no ventilation and the moisture causing the comb surface to have a watery look and mildew on the frames. If it smells ok and is not fermented and taste ok it should be fine. You can use your own judgement. The other frames look like there is crystallized honey? If it's crystallized you can do different things to get the frames clean again I used to just let the bees clean up the crystallized honey after I uncapped it. Now I just uncap them and put them in a tub of water for a few days only to loosen up the crystallized honey and drown any wax moth larva. Then you can use a hose to rinse them clean using the right pressure from the spray nozzle to not destroy the foundation while rinsing it. After doing that I just shake the frames downward while holding them to get the extra water out of the cells and put back in the hive. 

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[Robert Silverstein]

Those frames look like they have been slimmed by small hive beetles. 

Two years ago I had an apiary that had lots of frames that looked just like that. After some cleaning I separated the frames from the rest of the uninvolved frames from other apiaries. 

I tasted both honies finding the slimed honey not up to my standards. It had a bitter taste and aftertaste. 

I donated all 15 gallons to a commercial beekeeper who used it for bee feed.

That’s just what I did, your experience may differ.

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[Danny Williamson]

Yeah Robert I agree it definitely is probably hive beetles especially if there are larva you can see and the beetles like Jill mentioned but again I have had frames that look like the ones in the pictures when there was no hive beetles present at all because of no ventilation and moisture in the hive causing it to be fermented. In this case ot could  be a combination of both. What I did with the fermented honey I had was give it to people that like to make mead. 

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[Jill Lambie-ponce]

Ok thanks both of you. I’ll pass that info on to the hive owner.

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On Mar 15, 2026, at 5:03 PM, Robert Silverstein <roberts...@gmail.com> wrote:



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