[WRLCPA]

Yep you guessed it. I was inspecting a deep frame of foundationless comb. It had fresh eggs and I tilted it just the wrong way and yep, half the comb ended up on the ground. ****!

I took the comb and placed it half on the ground in front of the hive and the other half on entry step. Put the frame back in place. buttoned up the hive, put my tail between my legs and left.

Anything I should do?

I sure will not do that again. Guess I should be glad it wasn't the whole comb....

 

[Zbee]

If it was a decent piece of comb, you could rubber band it into place on a frame and the bees will reattach. Otherwise, melt it down.

 

[Wolfer]

I doubt there's many of us foundationless folks who haven't done that.

Like he said you can tie/rubber band it back in and they will fix it. If there's a flow on they can draw it new about as quick.

 

[WRLCPA]

There was no way to rubber band it, it was pretty much a mess, so I just left it for them. There is still a decent flow on here in northern Vermont, so lets hope for the best.

 

[treetrunk]

Yep you guessed it. I was inspecting a deep frame of foundationless comb. It had fresh eggs and I tilted it just the wrong way and yep, half the comb ended up on the ground. ****!

I took the comb and placed it half on the ground in front of the hive and the other half on entry step. Put the frame back in place. buttoned up the hive, put my tail between my legs and left.

Anything I should do?

I sure will not do that again. Guess I should be glad it wasn't the whole comb....

Dont do that anymore:no::no:

 

[WRLCPA]

LMAO. Okay I wont I promise

 

[Sovek]

I doubt there's many of us foundationless folks who haven't done that.

I dont run frames, but I do have a top bar, I havnt tilted anything because I know better, but I did break off a comb that was in the process of being reattached, they had already chewed off the masking tape, I was putting it back in the hive, and it just fell off. Not sure what I did but it happened.

So yeah, it happens even when we take steps to avoid it.

 

[WRLCPA]

What I didn't realize is that even if you keep the frame completely horizontal while rotating the frame, if the comb isn't connected at the bottom bar, it is still too heavy to support itself

Oh well, I'm sorry little bees now back to work

 

[Addis Popop]

I've been thinking about trying some foundationless frames. I am going to try just one hive at first. I am full of questions, so appreciate all the comments and would like to read more. Sorry about your comb breaking off, but I learned from it!

 

[WRLCPA]

I should have known better and as I said before I will never make that mistake again.

I just took a stroll by the hive and the comb that was in front of the hive is now completely bare of honey. The bees accomplished a complete cleansing in about 4 hours or so. That is just amazing. Picture half of deep frame of comb on the ground. It was almost down to the bottom bar so it was a rather large piece of fresh comb and was packed with eggs and covered with honey.

The hive is on hyper drive right now with a huge amount of bees flying around right in front of the entrance. I imagine thats because they are still cleaning up some left over honey and maybe salvaging some of the comb.

 

[biggraham610]

If it was a decent piece of comb, you could rubber band it into place on a frame and the bees will reattach. Otherwise, melt it down.

x2 G.

 

[biggraham610]

I should have known better and as I said before I will never make that mistake again.

I just took a stroll by the hive and the comb that was in front of the hive is now completely bare of honey. The bees accomplished a complete cleansing in about 4 hours or so. That is just amazing. Picture half of deep frame of comb on the ground. It was almost down to the bottom bar so it was a rather large piece of fresh comb and was packed with eggs and covered with honey.

The hive is on hyper drive right now with a huge amount of bees flying around right in front of the entrance. I imagine thats because they are still cleaning up some left over honey and maybe salvaging some of the comb.

How many hives do you have? The hyper activity could be robbers. I had a robbing frenzy I had to deal with yesterday. I am not sure open feeding honey is wise if you have more than one hive. Of course I am just second year, just relaying what I have heard. I had always heard robbing can be deadly. I witnessed it full on yesterday for the first time, luckily was able to intervene, and would love to think I never saw it again, though I know I will.

 

[WRLCPA]

Shoot, I didn't think of that. I have three hives in close proximity to each other

 

[enjambres]

Don't feel too badly, earlier this spring I lifted a box that had ten gnarly wild combs hanging down from medium frames in a medium-plus-comb depth box combo. (Stupid, first year beek that I was last summmer, I thought it was "cute" and didn't correct it when it was still a small problem.) I thought it was secure, but as you can guess, it wasn't and in short order I had ten frames of nectar, pollen and brood - including poor little larvae that fell out of the crushed cells- all over my feet.

I tied in what I could and was in an awful stew of self-recrimination because I was sure I'd probably killed my queen in the process. Turns out not to have been the case as she has now built out to six mediums and a deep, with brood in all but the upper one. Perhaps dumping out almost the entire brood nest in the first week of May might qualify as an effective anti-swarm technique, but I'm not recommending it.

Enj.

 

[M Awckland]

I write NO WIRE on the top of the frames just to remind me. Last year I put a med super on for space all foundationless for 3 weeks they didn't touch it. Them in one week they drew out the whole box. Sideways, didn't have to worry about that comb breaking off,it wasn't going anywhere

 

[beepro]

How come you don't wire these foundation less frames?
I wired mine with fishing lines but they are still a bit saggy when
full of honey and broods. I put 3 fishing lines across the frame to secure
the comb when they built it out. No broken comb so far.

 

[biggraham610]

How come you don't wire these foundation less frames?
I wired mine with fishing lines but they are still a bit saggy when
full of honey and broods. I put 3 fishing lines across the frame to secure
the comb when they built it out. No broken comb so far.

I havent wired any of mine, Have not had any problems. Once they tie it to the sides and bottom, they dont have to tie it completely just attatch it in a few places they are remarkably stable. However, they still need to be handled with care in any case. G

 

[WRLCPA]

I did wire the bottom box, but it is so time consuming to wire the frames that when it came time to out the second box on, I didn't have any frames wired so I put the frames on without wire.

On another note, I read on Michael Bushes site about robbing and come to find out, when I went back to the hive to see if the hyper activity was still going on about 2 hours after I originally saw it, the hive was back to normal. So, I am chalking that up to orientation flight of the young bees. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon so I think we are all good!

 

[biggraham610]

I did wire the bottom box, but it is so time consuming to wire the frames that when it came time to out the second box on, I didn't have any frames wired so I put the frames on without wire.

On another note, I read on Michael Bushes site about robbing and come to find out, when I went back to the hive to see if the hyper activity was still going on about 2 hours after I originally saw it, the hive was back to normal. So, I am chalking that up to orientation flight of the young bees. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon so I think we are all good!

Thats good news, on the orientation flight. You will know the difference if you see a full on robbing frenzy. G

 

[JWChesnut]

>>I did wire the bottom box, but it is so time consuming to wire the frames that when it came time to out the second box on, I didn't have any frames wired so I put the frames on without wire.

A frame capped with honey weighs more than 2 kg. To extract you need to a tangential velocity of 12 meters/second.

In a perfect world, you might be able to accelerate that frame so slowly that it didn't experience high side forces, in our awkward and imperfect world throwing 2 kilograms of dense liquid in a washing machine on spin cycle is hard on delicate wax.