Last year's OSR honey frames in hive

[Mellifera Crofter]

I managed my first spring inspection today (only three hives here at the croft). It seems that I had left them a generous amount of food, most of which they've ignored while nibbling away at the candy above their heads. Most of the honey is crystallised. There was no liquid honey when I pulled my hive tool across the cappings. It might also contain inverted sugar from my autumn feeding (so no good for extracting for home use). If I move the honey to the bottom box in the hive, will they be able to eat it? Should I scratch the capped honey a bit more to help them?
Kitta

[Mellifera Crofter]

PS: What I meant was, are they interested or able to eat crystallised honey - not whether they would be eat it if I've moved it to the bottom of the hive.
Kitta

[Jon]

They will eat it if they have no alternative but will likely ignore it if there is a decent flow of nectar available.
Sometimes they just clean out the cells and dump the crystals.
Once the hive had built up strongly, you can put a frame of stores in the centre of the brood nest and they will clear it out fairly quickly to make room for the queen to lay.
The other possibility is storing it somewhere safe and using it to add stores to nucs later in the season.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks Jon!
K

[gavin]

They certainly do both, just as they will do with wet sugar bags overhead. I never really thought about why they may sometimes use it and sometimes dump it (or perhaps suck it dry then dump the crystals). Might it depend on whether or not there is warm moist air dampening the crystals as may happen when the crystallised stores are over an active brood nest?

[Jon]

Scraping off the cappings certainly encourages them to eat or move stores.
I think it was finman on the other forum said that scraping and then spraying them frame with water will encourage them.
It will all come in useful at some point. If we have a summer like the last one any spare frames of stores will come in useful for supplementary feeding.

[Dark Bee]

PS: What I meant was, are they interested or able to eat crystallised honey - not whether they would be eat it if I've moved it to the bottom of the hive.
Kitta

Lift off the cappings and dip the frame into a barrel of rainwater for a moment or two, hold the frame by the lugs and keep it upright at all times and replace. I would be reluctant to split the brood nest, that is just my approach and I may well be wrong. Jon did suggest doing something of the sort with a strong colony and that will certainly work, it needs to be re-emphasied that a stong colony is required and it's a job for later in the year.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks everybody. I don't have a barrel of rainwater, DB - but I suppose the water from our well should be just as good with no additives.
Kitta