Question: I just bought some hive boxes from a beekeeper down the road. Do I need to do anything special to prepare the boxes before I add bees?

Using second-hand equipment is one of the key reasons to clean and sterilize hives. While used bee boxes can be an economical way to start or expand your apiaries, you need to be very careful that you do not bring diseases and pests into your bee yard with the equipment.

Another good time to sterilize is when one of your own hives dies. Even when you think you are sure the bees were not diseased, it is an opportunity to rid the boxes of wax moth larvae and other hangers-on.

There is a good description of several methods you can use to clean and sterilize bee boxes published by the National Bee Unit of York in the United Kingdom: Hive Cleaning and Sterilization.

Method C – soaking the boxes in a weak bleach solution for 20 minutes after scrapping them down – seems to work well. Rinse the boxes after the soak and let them dry thoroughly before using them.

Used frames are rarely worth keeping, unless they have new wax. The older the wax is, the darker it gets and the more toxins it stores.