Repurpose Clam Shells

Repurposed strawberry clam shells holding sugar cakes for bees. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Repurpose Clam Shells

I have to confess, I didn’t know what “clam shells” were when someone asked me if I had any extras. All I could think was why would someone ask me, living in the Midwest, for clam shells associated with oceans, or large bodies of water?

Turns out “clam shells” is the term for those clear containers that hold fruit and vegetables at your local grocery store.

These are two clam shells that work well for honey bee sugar cakes. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Clam shells make excellent forms for drying supplemental sugar cakes for feeding honey bees over winter.

Not that you can’t use bread pans and pie tins for the supplemental sugar cakes because you can. The issue is how many supplemental sugar cakes you are planning to make. Since I make 12, one for each one of my hives, having supplemental containers like clam shells comes in handy. You want to dry out the sugar cakes in an easy to store, and use, shape.

The clam shell rectangular shape nicely fits across the horizontal length of a honey bee hive, easily fitting two lengthwise.

The other advantage of repurposing clam shells is that once dry, you can easily store two sugar cakes per clam shell. You want to make them half the size of the shells to nicely fit into the hives, which also makes shaping the sugar cakes easier.

And repurposing clam shells also come in handy to store beekeeping gloves, muslin kitchen towels and loose flower bulbs you inadvertently dig up.

Keep a supply handy with your beekeeping supplies and you may find other ways to incorporate clam shells.

Charlotte