I was inspecting my hives today... all 3 made it through the winter. Yay!! 2 of the 3 are going strong with plenty of bees, brood and still quite a bit of capped honey. However in those 2 when I was removing frames I opened up a number of cells that had been built between the top and bottom boxes causing the white bee goo to ooze out everywhere. At first I thought it would be better if they weren't there so I started removing the cells that connected the top/bottom. But after a couple of frames I wondered if I needed to do that and if I was actually doing more harm than good so I stopped. So, what would you do? Clean em out to so the boxes/frames aren't connected or leave em as is and let them break when pulling the frames for inspection? Thanks.
gswartz
if you take the cells out they will just put them back. As Cameron said use them to check for mites.
my response is a bit against the current, and I will explain why I try to remove it when ever I can because I have and you can and will most likely eventually crush a queen that is skirting around the bottom of a frame when putting the boxes back.
I think someone without a lot of experience is just as likely to kill the queen scraping burr comb than having her crushed on burr comb.
It can be real sticky with that ladder/burr comb attaching two boxes. When they stick together as you are prying the boxes apart, that too can crush bees. I like to clean the ladder comb each time I'm in there. As Dean Probably does, you can smoke the bees down before cleaning the comb away. 
>I think someone without a lot of experience is just as likely to kill the queen scraping burr comb than having her crushed on burr comb.
That is exactly my thinking. Which is more likely? And which is more likely to result in something that can be fixed. e.g. the queen is trapped between them but not squished and they might get her out, but if you catch her when scraping the comb off, you may cut her in half...
That is exactly my thinking. Which is more likely? And which is more likely to result in something that can be fixed. e.g. the queen is trapped between them but not squished and they might get her out, but if you catch her when scraping the comb off, you may cut her in half...
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