[Drown]

I'm a first year beekeeper from Alabama I started with two hives one month ago and putting my brood box together I was one frame short but my hive came that day so me being a new beekeeper decided or thought it would be okay to just not put that frame in until I got it well two weeks later when I was able to get the frame and I opened the box up there was nowhere to put the frame anymore because they had done built cone so large, .what to do

 

[JWPalmer]

Did you not have the frames pushed together? Often if you leave a frame out, they will build a comb from the inner cover to the bottom of the box that is the same size as the combs in the frames. From there you just cut it out and rubber band into an empty frame, no foundation. But, If your comb is drawn out too fat such that the 10th frame will not fit, you can use a large serrated breadknife to trim down the fat areas until the last frame will fit. The bees will fix the comb so do not worry too much about the damage.

 

[Litsinger]

Welcome to the forum. I think all beekeepers have made a variation of this mistake at least once- so welcome to the club...

Good luck to you this season, and again welcome to Beesource.

Russ

 

[joebeewhisperer]

I think all beekeepers have made a variation of this mistake at least once- so welcome to the club...

Last year I had a frame feeder with a nice symmetrically build piece of comb all along the bottom. Thing was heavy to get out).

 

[ShelleyStuart]

It's in the brood box, so you can inspect around that natural comb if you want, or slice it out as others have suggested. I've had bees badly draw out comb sticking two frames together and I just left it as-is. I didn't need them to conform to my ideas of a proper setup in order to maintain that hive. I just inspected around that double frame and let them be. Eventually that hive died over a winter and then I cleaned it up -- but really that was for me, not for the future bees.

If it were a honey super, I would have done things differently because I want to extract those frames.

 

[crofter]

One problem with irregular comb is that it can hide developing queen cells. That could cost you a swarm or torn down cells if you were queen rearing.

 

[Drown]

Did you not have the frames pushed together? Often if you leave a frame out, they will build a comb from the inner cover to the bottom of the box that is the same size as the combs in the frames. From there you just cut it out and rubber band into an empty frame, no foundation. But, If your comb is drawn out too fat such that the 10th frame will not fit, you can use a large serrated breadknife to trim down the fat areas until the last frame will fit. The bees will fix the comb so do not worry too much about the damage.

 

[ShelleyStuart]

One problem with irregular comb is that it can hide developing queen cells. That could cost you a swarm or torn down cells if you were queen rearing.

Agreed; any choice depends on your plan for the hive. (Although if the hive looks like it's getting too big for its britches, you can split some of the other frames out.)

I see this as a lesson in beekeeping, but not a dreadful mistake. I had a mostly empty super on top of a hive last fall (I forget why at this point; I know I had some reason at the time) and the bees decided to build in it, and toss in some honey to boot. It was late in the season and I was done harvesting so I left it for the winter. This spring I pulled it off and left it out for them to clean out. I worked around them, instead of the other way 'round. Much less stressful.

I'll take the comb and do something fun with it -- maybe for a kid demo, or maybe to paint foundation.