Interrupted cut out

[Understudy]

. I don't think it was chaulk brood.

That white inside cells

http://www.brendhanhorne.com/coppermine_dir/displayimage.php?album=74&pos=24

Finsky, I believe you may be right. I did not put that drone comb in the hive. I set aside in a box for meltdown. That was on an outer comb wall. There was no other brood on that piece of comb. I took a picture of it because it is not the first time I have seen pockets of drone comb on a feral hive. This may however be the first time I have seen chaulkbrood. Very interesting.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Understudy]

i have a question:  after i cut out the comb and put what i could in the frames, i put the rest in a BIG rubber maid box. a lot of bees went into the rubber maid box. now the weather is crappy again.  the bees are still in the box and not in the hive.  i put the box near the hive in hopes that they would find it when there was a break in the weather.  i'm afraid that what i'll get instead is a whole bunch of robbing of the honey.

how do you handle the bees that don't end up in the hive??

btw....i also found some very brittle white comb in the newer of the two hives i did.  it was completely unused.  my theory is that it was built late in the season and there was not brood or stores to fill it.  it just sat over the winter....maybe for use this year??  anyway, it was so brittle that it shattered and crumbled when i tried to take it out.

The brittle comb was abundant in this cut out. The bees had a lot of abandon comb in this hive. I suspect however because it was so brittle that it has no appeal to wax moths or small hive beetles.

I had bees stay in my tupperware bin also. I let them clump together and then brush them into the hive. I will usually pick up the piece they have gathered on and brush them into the box. If there are a bunch of them. I will spray them with sugar water and brush them into a 5 gallon bucket and then add them to the hive boxes.

Be prepared for them to abscond. If you have place an excluder on you have a lesser chance of that if the queen is in the box. If they do abscond. take the brood frames and add them to a good hive already. The bees will pull out any questioned pupae.

Sincerely,
Brendhan