checked an overwintered hive, Russians again, that I cleaned up the 2nd deep about 4 weeks ago.
Found that they had built the usual little islands of comb, not so little this time, on the duragilt. Also chewed holes in the the new wax foundation and cglued everything together with the isnads and burr comb between the duragilt and the new wax. Unfortunately a downpour started and I had no spare deep foundation with me so moved all the duragilt to one side of the top deep and all the new foundation to the other. There are 4 frames of duragilt, 2 frames damaged wax and the other haven't been started. There is 20-30 lbs of capped honey on the duragilt islands and at the bottom of the islands it looks like they are trying to raise brood, none capped. They are also drawing and storing nectar on the plastic frames in the honey super above the top deep (hive is a few miles away so only wanted to visit every 3-4 weeks)
What should I do now? I still have some new new deep wax frames and am inclined to scrap all the duragilt and restart the 2nd deep as there is no capped brood there. If I do that how would I salvage the honey on those frames? Am open to suggestions so long as they don't include the use of Duragilt.
Found that they had built the usual little islands of comb, not so little this time, on the duragilt. Also chewed holes in the the new wax foundation and cglued everything together with the isnads and burr comb between the duragilt and the new wax. Unfortunately a downpour started and I had no spare deep foundation with me so moved all the duragilt to one side of the top deep and all the new foundation to the other. There are 4 frames of duragilt, 2 frames damaged wax and the other haven't been started. There is 20-30 lbs of capped honey on the duragilt islands and at the bottom of the islands it looks like they are trying to raise brood, none capped. They are also drawing and storing nectar on the plastic frames in the honey super above the top deep (hive is a few miles away so only wanted to visit every 3-4 weeks)
What should I do now? I still have some new new deep wax frames and am inclined to scrap all the duragilt and restart the 2nd deep as there is no capped brood there. If I do that how would I salvage the honey on those frames? Am open to suggestions so long as they don't include the use of Duragilt.