first time with TBH

**Scottsman** · 05-02-2012, 02:14 PM

Need a little advice, I caught a large swarm about 10 days ago and hived them in a top bar hive that I had waiting for them. I peeked in yesterday and they have built our eight bars and about half on the 9th and a dollar size comb on number 10. These last two are straight on the bars, as I was pulling the bars back to check them I found that they have crossed each bar and attached about a two inches to it's adjacent bar. Kinda in a curved shape. I may have promoted this activity by building the hive too small. The bars are 12 inches long with a 9 inch waxed center strip about the size of a pop stick. in the swarm trap they had followed the ridges in the lid perfectly. I was really surprised to see this and can't imagine what a mess it will be to harvest. How would you straighten them out ?

**Michael Bush** · 05-02-2012, 11:07 PM

If it's only a little bit at the end, you can just cut it and push it back into position.

**DeeAnna** · 05-03-2012, 06:25 AM

What Michael said. Don't beat up on yourself. Someone I read awhile back was theorizing that a curved comb is a more stable structure, so the bees may tend to build curved comb naturally. A comb guide just suggests how to build, and the bees don't always follow our suggestions. Just understand that is their tendency and gently encourage them to build straight.

**Scottsman** · 05-03-2012, 06:44 AM

That sounds great in theory and if I had caught these super comb builders in time would certainly have solved the problem. However, it's like pages in a book now, each bar is tied to the next and so neatly curved around it's predecessor that there is no starting point. Get my point, if I cut the comb off the bar there is no place to move it to until the comb is cut off the previous bar and so on and so forth. I suppose I could slide the entire brood nest back and start at the first bar but the comb is so soft I'm thinking that might be a bad Idea.

**Delta Bay** · 05-03-2012, 09:47 AM

Get in there and position the leading edge/mid rib so that it tracks more or less down the center of all the bars. Do it now before they finish the combs off even worse than they are making sure you don't over correct causing the combs to fall off the bars. The combs should still be thinned down to a point on the leading edge which will give you the chance to reposition with much less adjusting than when the combs are totally finished off and heavy with honey in this area. You may need to shave the depth of the cell walls back a bit also if they have been over extended due to nectar storage. With this you can still move the nest away from the entrance so that some straighter new combs can be built that are more workable allowing you to harvest the ones not so nice over time. If you move the curved combs back, spacers may be helpful in allowing them to be workable depending on how off they are.

You really should have a reliable guide that runs the full length of the bar in the hive.

**Scottsman** · 05-03-2012, 12:21 PM

Originally Posted by Delta Bay

Get in there and position the leading edge/mid rib so that it tracks more or less down the center of all the bars. Do it now before they finish the combs off even worse than they are making sure you don't over correct causing the combs to fall off the bars. The combs should still be thinned down to a point on the leading edge which will give you the chance to reposition with much less adjusting than when the combs are totally finished off and heavy with honey in this area. You may need to shave the depth of the cell walls back a bit also if they have been over extended due to nectar storage. With this you can still move the nest away from the entrance so that some straighter new combs can be built that are more workable allowing you to harvest the ones not so nice over time. If you move the curved combs back, spacers may be helpful in allowing them to be workable depending on how off they are.

You really should have a reliable guide that runs the full length of the bar in the hive.

The guide is a strip glued into a grove in the center of the bar, it comes to within an inch of the ends. It protrudes down about 1/4" and is coated well with Bees wax. I figured it was about the same as nailing the cleat of a regular frame sideways on the bar as a starter strip. Somewhere they just got a little off track. I've never had bees so gentle or that build comb so fast. I'm going to attempt to straighten them out this evening, following the suggestions received here.

**DeeAnna** · 05-03-2012, 02:19 PM

"...Get my point, if I cut the comb off the bar there is no place to move it to until the comb is cut off the previous bar and so on and so forth...."

Yes, I most certainly do get your point. Been there, done that. It may get a bit messy and awkward, but better to fix it soon by doing whatever it takes to fix it. That might include cutting off some comb entirely and setting it aside to be melted down, if you can't figure out how to fix it back straight so it can stay on the bar.

**westernbeekeeper** · 05-03-2012, 02:24 PM

Fix it right away or never.

**Delta Bay** · 05-03-2012, 04:19 PM

The guide is a strip glued into a grove in the center of the bar, it comes to within an inch of the ends. It protrudes down about 1/4" and is coated well with Bees wax.

Those should be good guides. It could be that the swarm was big and you have a good flow going on so they are over extending the the cell walls in that area so that they have somewhere to place all that nectar they're rapidly collecting. Do the best you can to make the combs workable.