This package went into a colony with established comb so we didn’t have to remove or repair comb, they are already building straight. Have fun, we had trouble finding evidence of a queen, but we finally did find it! This is a week after hiving.
This package went into a colony with established comb so we didn’t have to remove or repair comb, they are already building straight. Have fun, we had trouble finding evidence of a queen, but we finally did find it! This is a week after hiving.
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I have two hives, I’m very new at this. One of my hives are foundation less, the bees have built combs into the frames next to each other. What do I do?I thought keeping them tight together would prevent that. The queen has laid eggs in there. Should I leave it now that it’s that way and it’s just the brood box where I’m not trying to get honey?
Thanks
Michele
If I understand correctly you are saying that they are cross combing in the foundationless frames? Top bar and foundationless hives you do need to be much more involved and check them fairly frequently when they are first starting to make sure that the comb is being built properly. If you can catch it within a day or two of being built you can keep guiding them to build in the right place. Once they have a couple of frames built properly direction wise it usually goes much smoother and you don’t have to watch them as carefully. Cutting out wax is a hard thing to do for newbees, but the sooner it is caught and fixed the better. You will need them to draw the frames properly so that you can get the frames out for hive inspections in the future, even though it is the brood box. It is actually more critical than if it was in honey supers because that honey you will be taking wax and all, brood area you hope to leave the wax for them to use for multiple years. Leaving the cross combing will create more problems in the long run. You are welcome too send me pics if you need to. If it is straight and you can cut it out and clip or tie it in the correct place so you don’t lose all the brood you can go that route. Be careful while cutting and moving comb so you don’t injure your queen. Good luck! Great question, we don’t run anything foundationless except my daughter’s top bar hive, but I will see if we can do some videos on cutting out and dealing with cross combing to help you out!