Small cells what a mess

[CWBees]

I opened up one of my hives today to get some frames of brrod and honey to set up a nuc for a queen I purchased. I had around four frames of small cell foundation in the second hive body to see what they would do with it. They did not draw out the small cell but had placed a bunch of burr comb on the foundation and it had such depth that it was actually pushing the foundation out to one side. I took all but one frame of the small cell out. The frame I left had a good amount of brood. How best would it be to introduce small cell to the bees?

[Tors]

I place one empty frame between 2 drawn frames in the center of the brood nest. They are drawing stuff great now.

[Sundance]

ditto......

[Alienor]

The very best is to make package bees.
Only the bees, the queen, only SC foundation and feed them with liquid food.

[Michael Bush]

>They did not draw out the small cell but had placed a bunch of burr comb on the foundation and it had such depth that it was actually pushing the foundation out to one side.

Comb does not push the foundation to one side. The foundation buckled and they took advantage of the space, as they always do.

> I took all but one frame of the small cell out. The frame I left had a good amount of brood. How best would it be to introduce small cell to the bees?

Why take it out? You need to have the frames tightly together and if the foundation buckled (which it did on at least that one) you need to remove it and either straighten it (if you can) or replace it (if you can't).

Feeding empty frames into the middle of good straight brood comb is the best way to insure it will be peferctly straight. Just don't overdo it and stretch the nurse bees too thin.

The problems of buckling is common on any wax foundation and paralell combs and fins is common on any plastic foundation. Wire is usually helpful on the buckling. Crowding the frames together so they don't have excess space is usually helpful on the ins and outs and fins and paralell combs out from the face.

[CWBees]

I have plastacell foundation so what accured was the bees had drawn the comb from one foundation to the foundation next to it perpendicular to the frames. When I pulled the frame the comb was broke in two and the foundation buckled when it was pushed to one side as it went through the narrow opening between the top of the frames.