[GroosBrews]

I did my firstever hive inspection today on a twelve day old foundationless langstroth hive with two frames of foundation.. Anyway, when I pulled apart the frames to take a look, all the bees between the foundationless and the foundation frames were linked together.. There was literally a chain of bees between the frames.. I had to "break" the chain when I pulled the frames apart.. Is this normal for all the bees to be linked together like that? I've read a few books but there nothing mentioned about this..Thanks in advance for any advice to a newb beekeeper!

 

[Mike Gillmore]

Yes, this is normal to see in your situation. Do a search here on FESTOONING and you can read up on it.

 

[Breakfast with the Bees]

I noticed that on my frames, too, and was going to ask. Then I saw it, by chance, in Walter Kelley's How to Keep Bees. Page 13, thirteenth edition. The wax producers gorge themselves and then hang in festoons near the building site while "their organs of digestion and secretion transform the content of their honey sacs into energy and beeswax, and after about 24 hours they begin to build comb." Actually Kelley reproduced that courtesy kolbs see thru bee hives.

Have I interpreted that correctly?

 

[AmericasBeekeeper]

Spot on Breakfast. That is why the debate on foundationless and utilizing beeswax/comb resources. It takes honey and time to make beeswax and comb. How much is still vague, but it is between 4 and 14 pounds of honey for a pound of wax. If it was one to one it would not be resource intensive.

 

[maybee bee]

Thanks for the answer Breakfast. I noticed this also when I went to remove the queen cage after hiving my new package. They were already busy even though the queen was not released yet. They were on drawn comb from a dead out this winter, but were strung together pretty well. I will read up further on "festooning"

 

[Rohe Bee Ranch]

They do this when making beeswax.

 

[GroosBrews]

Thank you everyone for your timely and useful responses..

 

[Michael Bush]

Oh no! They are all chained toether? Pull every one apart! Now! No... just kidding....

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopfightingbees

"There are a few rules of thumb that are useful guides. One is that when you are confronted with some problem in the apiary and you do not know what to do, then do nothing. Matters are seldom made worse by doing nothing and are often made much worse by inept intervention." --The How-To-Do-It book of Beekeeping, Richard Taylor