Hi Scott,

As several others have now told you, allowing open access to honey/cappings
is a no-no.  I learned this the hard way a couple of years ago.  I extracted
a few supers, and thought I was doing a "good" thing by placing the empty,
wet supers on the ground near a couple of hives.  Although I didn't have a
robbing incident, the bees got VERY aggressive (this was late in the season,
after the last flow) -  bees were everywhere...I got stung, the dog got
stung, I think the cat got stung...all just going about our business in the
back yard, well away from the hives.

It's probably not so bad to place cappings or wet supers in a box on top of
the hive earlier in the season (some books & beekeepers recommend this), but
definitely be wary of doing so after the flows are done. The caveat here has
already been mentioned - if you're not sure of the condition of all of your
hives, you could spread disease.

Regards,

Todd.

P.S. - welcome to the list.

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