[Briordan]

So I screwed up hiving this year. I went and purchased a couple packages with my 80 y/o neighbor and along the way he was telling me that the best way to hive the package is to take out 5-6 frames from the brood chamber, and leave the package in there. So I decided to try that. Well, I live just West of Houston, and right after the hiving it rained for 2 weeks straight. I didn't get back into the hive until two weeks later and now that brood chamber is FULL of wild comb. Heavy wild comb hanging over where the empty package had been laying in the brood box, attached to the inner cover above. Now I can't inspect the wild comb, and am afraid of rotating the inner cover over to look at it for fear of accidentally breaking it off. I'll have no way to reattach the wild comb, and risk killing the queen and any young brood developing in this comb. And if I add a medium super now, there will be the huge flow restriction of the inner cover!

I have one really crappy idea for fixing this, but I thought I'd try this forum and see what advice I'd get.

-Brian

 

[jwcarlson]

Putting the whole package in and hoping they don't build comb inside of it is a truly terrible idea, but you know that now.

Look up cutouts on YouTube because that is what you'll be doing to rectify the situation. My suggestion would be to cut out any comb containing honey/nectar/syrup and discard of it or feed it back to the bees in some way that doesn't set off robbing. So it sounds like you left a second empty box on top without frames in it?

Another option is to just leave them be and "deal with it later".

 

[deknow]

If you don't want to mess with it, turn the entire box upside down and put a box full of comb or foundation on top. The bees will tend to want to move towards the top, and the will tend to not want to continue using the upside down comb as is. After the brood hatches, hopefully the box will be largely abandoned.

 

[dsegrest]

Sometimes when in doubt do nothing. Put another box on top of that one. The bees will do a better job there. When winter comes the brood nest will migrate upward. Next spring you can pull the bottom box out.