[Trixie]

We recently retrieved some honey from a limb that split and fell in our back yard. The honey was clear and fresh, but we only took a small amount, thinking we could salvage the bees and lure them into a hive, and they could have rest of the honey for the winter.

A beekeeper sold us a hive and told us to find the comb that had babies or eggs and put it into the hive, placed near the limb, and the bees would most likely go into the hive.

When my husband dug into the log to find the eggs or babies, the comb was full of maggots.

We got honey from about 3 feet from the comb containing maggots - my question - is the honey we got safe or fit to eat?

 

[alleyyooper]

LOL those maggots were the larva stage of honey bees, AKA baby bees.
Yes the honey is safe to eat since they were not maggots.

Eggs are little tiny white dots in the bottom of a cell, many experienced bee keepers have problems seeing them. I do my self in certain lighting. Larva are white usually coil in a c shape in the cells.

Al

 

[Trixie]

Thanks for the answer -

Actually, I'm pretty sure these were maggots.

These were longer, slimmer than honeybee larva and were yellow, and they were outside of the cells, not inside.

It's been a while since we had bees, but I'm pretty sure they were not larva and as I say, they were outside and crawling all over the comb.

Also, I did some looking on the internet and am convinced they were maggots of some kind of fly. Not sure if there is any connection, but we had a plague of almost Biblical proportion of flies at our house and others we talked with didn't seem to be bothered much by flies this year.

 

[beegrowing]

Yes it sounds like a moth or other infestation took over when your bees left.
And yes it's good.
As long as the honey you kept is Capped and the comb looks clean enough to process;it really Never goes bad. It's one of the few foods that can be stored "forever" (as long as the water content wasn't too high,like uncapped nectar). A perfect pantry food!
Honey is also a medicine. Under bandages it has hydrogen peroxide (search it! it's so neat!) for a self-sterlie dressing.

 

[Trixie]

Thanks, Beegrowing,

It looks good and clear. The comb was sealed and white. I had to squeeze the honey by hand, and of course, had to lick my hands, and it tasted good. That was before we found the maggots. After we found them, I just wondered if there was any way they could have contaminated the honey.

Yes, I am familiar with the benefits of honey and that's why I didn't want to discard this if it was good.

We had a couple of hives for years when our children were little. Our middle son had allergies and the pediatrician told us to get some local honey - we just got some bees.

Thanks again,

 

[Iddee]

Do a search for SHB, or small hive beetle. I think you may find that what you had were SHB larva.

 

[Trixie]

I think you might be right -

Sadly, we weren't able to entice the bees to go into the hive we bought - but we did get a little honey that was clean. I'm assuming it is good to eat as i've been using it with lemon juice for allergies.

I miss the bees, though.

 

[johng]

Yes, those most likely were small hive beetle larva. If you found some honey comb before the SHB hatched out you should be fine eating the honey. Now that you have a hive it sounds like you should order some bees to go in it come spring time.