How do I get all that mass of spur comb cleaned up and the super back in decent order

1609 Views 7 Replies 6 Participants Last post by hoodswoods, Mar 23, 2010

Curt732

Discussion Starter · #1 · Mar 20, 2010 (Edited by Moderator)

On March 1st 2010 and captured the below hive. I was exhausted when it was over but very happy with the bee vac I had built and the shear number of Bees I sucked up. I put 5 frames of old comb and brood from the original hive into empty medium frames which went into a Super on top of a Deep that was very full of bees. There was also room for 4 frames with wax foundation

I spent a few days fooling around with Feeders, Syrup, and other stuff. I was afraid I was tormenting the bees to much. Eventually I put a pollen patty inside and left them alone until the 15th

March 15, 2010 I opened the hive for the first actual inspection. I was overwhelmed at the amount of life inside the hive. All 9 frames in the super were covered with bees. Every frame had new drawn comb in it. The pollen patty was almost gone except for a small sliver. When I tried to move the frames they were all stuck together with the new comb. I think they call that burr comb. And just the movement was destroying new brood and larva. I was afraid to slide out all the frames because of the damage it would have done. However I could get a peek down into the deep and there was considerable new comb being drawn down there as well. I was afraid to split the boxes for fear of losing the obviously active Queen. I'm a little bit overwhelmed here. How in the world am I ever going to get that super full of burr comb cleaned up and operational again.

Curt

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rwlaw

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Joined May 4, 2009

1,656 Posts

#5 · Mar 20, 2010

Hi Curt, from what you wrote you put all the old comb into the medium super right? If so, put the medium on the bottom board, drill a 1" hole in the deep between the hand hold and the bottom of the frames (regulate the holes size w/ a cut up cork), wait till the queen moves up to the deep (you'll start finding eggs in the deep). Put a queen excluder between the super and the deep just to be sure (or find the queen in the deep). After a couple weeks you should have pretty much all the brood hatched out and you can start carving on and or culling the old comb.
I did a couple cut outs last year and I know what you mean about feeling like you're tormenting the bees, but you want to get that old comb culled out.