Checked on my bees today! It is a mess in the medium supper.
They have completely drawn up all the frames in the brood deep. Every thing is straight and nice. Tons and tons of eggs and larvae, capped brood. However, the medium supper on top of the brood chamber is a mess..... They have drawn combs and linked 4 of the frames together. Honey lots of honey on 5 frames however I had to use my hive tool and remove all that crap that they were building in between the frames. Killed about 50 larvae whom the bees placed between the frame. Honey dripped every where they lapped it up like hogs. Did not get stung.. No smoke just a veil. For some strange reason they have decided to chain link the frames together in the medium supper. Two frames of the medium supper had broods on them. Did not see the queen.
I tried my best to remove the combs that were built in the middle of the bee space. I used a frame spacer to ensure that they will not do that yet they did. Any other solutions???
Quote from: Rodni73 on June 23, 2008, 11:22:31 PM
Checked on my bees today! It is a mess in the medium supper.
They have completely drawn up all the frames in the brood deep. Every thing is straight and nice. Tons and tons of eggs and larvae, capped brood. However, the medium supper on top of the brood chamber is a mess..... They have drawn combs and linked 4 of the frames together. Honey lots of honey on 5 frames however I had to use my hive tool and remove all that crap that they were building in between the frames. Killed about 50 larvae whom the bees placed between the frame. Honey dripped every where they lapped it up like hogs. Did not get stung.. No smoke just a veil. For some strange reason they have decided to chain link the frames together in the medium supper. Two frames of the medium supper had broods on them. Did not see the queen.
Did you use foundation or go with starter strips? You should never use frame spacers in a super that may be a brood chamber. The 1st 2 boxes should always be considered brood boxes, regardless of there size or depth. Harvestable supers can start with the third box if using deeps as brood chambers or a brood box if using all mediums for everything.
QuoteI tried my best to remove the combs that were built in the middle of the bee space. I used a frame spacer to ensure that they will not do that yet they did. Any other solutions???
Using frame spacers while the bees are drawing comb is asking for problems and you have them. If you must use frame spacers wait until after most of the comb as been drawn out and then use it, the bees will then draw the combs deeper as storage combs. The more space between frames the more likely trouble as the bees will do weird and wild things with the comb. If you space the frames using foundation the bees will often build burr or bridge comb between the frames. Put the frames as close together as possible when they begin drawing comb, any spacing should between the outside frames and the hive wall, not between the frames until the comb is mostly drawn, then you can space using a spacer. Use 10 frames to start then remove 1 when switching to the spacers.
thank you!
I am using pierco plastic frames.
They burr up plastic in the best of times. Get a slow flow and it's worse. Pushing the frames together and cutting out the burrs are the best you can do.
I have been finding it easiest to just constantly migrate out poorly drawn comb. I take the bad ones and move them to the outside edges to hatch out. Once they are mostly hatched, I remove them and put two new frames in the middle. I just keep it up until I get a box of good comb.
Once the comb is screwed up, I've had poor results trying to remove the bad parts. The bees usually make something even worse after I "fix" it.
If only you had used foundation... wait-- you did.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfaqs.htm#messedupcomb