which shows how little they know about bees when they think I'm an expert!! :shock:
I have an interesting situation that I'd like to get ya'll opinions on, since I am far from being the "bee-rescue lady".
A week ago I posted about a hive that had been started in a community garden type place that I frequent. The hive caretaker had left to China last summer, shortly after installing I think, so when they found out I had a hive, they asked me to look at it.
This hive is a deep and a shallow. When I first looked at it 2 weeks ago, the whole hive looked packed to the gills, and it had thrown a couple of swarms already. It had a queen excluder on top of the shallow, which I removed. I then put an empty shallow on top to give them room and hopefully cut down the swarms and suggested I come back when I had more time to clean it up. I figured I would just be cutting out the frames and scraping a lot of burr comb and such to sort it out and get it a little more in order.
Well, no more swarms, but when I went back last weekend, the bees hadn't touched the top shallow. I started to remove frames from the lower shallow, and that's when I discovered that the bottom deep had no frames in it! It is full of comb built down off of the bottoms of the shallow. Aaack!
Removing just that one shallow frame pretty much ripped up a lot of the comb in the bottom. The land trust didn't have any spare frames or foundation for a deep, and I had already contributed my extra foundation for the swarm we caught the week before so we were out of resources at the moment. My thought was to leave the hive as it is for now. Have the land trust order deep frames and foundation. Then treat it kinda like a cut out? and try to cut the comb from the bottom deep and rubber band or tie it into the new frames and then put it back. Then give them a couple of weeks to sort themselves out and then go back in to inspect. I think they may have varroa, but I can't even get the mite board under the combs!
So my questions: Does this sound doable? Is it the correct way to go about it? Is there something I'm missing? Does anybody have a clue why someone would start a hive with an empty deep and a shallow full of plasticell?
Any advice is greatly appreciated. I'm super excited for this learning opportunity and a little intimidated too. Thanks again for all the good info on this board!
love,
ziffa
sounds like a plan. wouldn't worry about the mites. they have made it this long, i'd not consider treating.
you might watch for the queen to move up and then put an excluder between her and that deep. that way your brood will be above and it will be easier to clean up the lower box. i'd also put the empty right over the deep. put the old shallow on top when you pull the shallow that's on there, loosen around the edges and give it a twist. that will break all the connecting comb and you won't pull so much up.
This is almost funny. In another thread, I said top super and Kathy said bottom super. Now here, Kathy says top super, and I say bottom super. :-D
I would remove the empty super and have a couple guys lift the deep and shallow off the bottom board. Then place the new deep with foundation on the bottom board and reset the hive on it. By summer's end, the queen should be laying in the bottom and the no-frame deep and shallow should be full if honey. Harvest it and put the shallow back on for the fall flow.
I hate cutouts in hive bodies. It is just too messy.
:-D
i was going her lack of equipment. thought if her immediate goal was to make room and stop swarming, putting the empty shallow right over the full box was a better bet. i'm sure either way would work.
Agreed.... The honey cap needs to be broken. It is stopping them from moving up, so she has no place to lay.
Either way would give her room.
Ziffa, you don't have to choose one way over the other. You can do with the equip. you can get, which may be a combo of the two methods. Both are correct.
Thanks you guys! I hadn't thought about the honey cap, I bet that is why they aren't moving up. Iddee's suggestion sounds like the easiest, but I'm afraid when we lift the hive, the comb might break up anyway. When I tried to slide the mite board under, it felt like the comb was attached to the bottom board. These bees don't seem to have a good grasp on "bee space". I might need to buy them a book ;p.
Thanks for the replies, as always, you definitely gave me food for thought. I will let you know how it goes after it goes. :)
love,
ziffa