Fat combs

[dmcdonald]

Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with very thick combs? Once last season, and again this season, I've got a colony that has built out the last comb the the point where it's a couple inches thick, and projecting into the space where the next comb should be. I don't know why the bees sometimes keep drawing out the cells, rather than starting a new comb. Anyway, the honey's not ripe yet, and I hate to just cut off all that unripened honey, and likely the comb would break in the process anyway.

I'm wondering if the best approach is to leave an empty bar over the area where the fat comb is encroaching, and put a straight comb just beyond that. Maybe then the bees will ripen and cap the fat comb, without other combs being affected. WIthout a straight comb to provide a barrier, the next comb the bees build would be very irregular, I'm guessing.

The other approach would be to pull the comb and use it for feed. But that seems like a waste.

[Cinnamon]

I've noticed that on my hive, seems they sometimes like 36/37 mm? They started off nice and straight, but it gets a bit bumpy and definitly, the width is going wider. I've given my second, new hive 35/38 mm bars (whats the word, interlaced?) to see what is going to happen.

I was also thinking of having some TB's cut in odd sizes, to use as spacers if the comb gets way too fat.

Cinnamon

[Michael Bush]

I think Cinnamon may have the right idea. Just cut a skinny bar to put over the thick comb. I think if you put a whole bar in they will start in between two bars or some other odd place. I like to add a bar on the other side so it will be between two drawn combs. I'm doing that more since my long medium Lanstroth hive swarmed (not TBH but a long hive). I think in order to keep the brood nest open you have to add some anyway, so why not between two good straight combs instead of waiting for them to move back more.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

That's what I try to do. Get my best comb and put it in the back so it trains the new comb being build just infront of it. You only need one best comb, even if the one that was at the back previously is all bumpy, because when the new comb is drawn, the face that faces the training comb will be perfect and so you put in another new bar between the current last two and it will be perfect on both sides.

Same strategy with the brood nest, use your two best combs to train a 3rd, the 3rd will be better than the 2 trainers.

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Scot Mc Pherson
Foundationless Small Cell Top Bar Hives
BeeWiki: http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/

[topbarguy]

Hi Dm,

I've noticed the same behavior, especially if I've moved or re-arranged the top bars with a minor flow going on.

So far I have just used a serrated knife to reduce its thickness and then placed it next to a drawn out comb.

And thanks for sharing the info on your site concerning the side/end entrances. I like them alot better than the holes I had drilled in my first tbh.

Regards
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

I used a 1/2" wide bar today to make room for a fat one. Crowded it up close to another drawn comb but still had a gap so I filled it. Maybe it would be handy to have some 1/4" and 1/2" wide bars to put in when they build a fat one to get back on the center of the next bar. I think I might make a few and play with them.

[Cinnamon]

What about fastening them together?

I'm thinking that it would be hard to pick 2-3 bars, esp if they incooperated the thin ones into a new comb setup and it would maybe make it unstable if the beekeeper is clumsy (and that describes me to a T http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

So, what about this:

====
-------
| | |
-------
====

where ==== are the teeth(?) of the clamp.

Cinnamon

[Michael Bush]

If you know which comb you think that strip belongs to, you could use a hand stapler and connect it so you remember to leave the attached. The wax and propolis will hold them together as long as you aren't prying them apart.