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My TBH is doing great, installed a package on April 19 and they've been working hard. I looked in today and found 8-10 combs, saw some capped honey, larva and capped brood. All good. I'm still leery of the new comb so am not confident enough to turn them over for a picture, so attached is a shot through the window before my inspection.
I have two questions about handling the combs.
1. Many of the combs are attached to the sides. It sounds simple to slip your hive tool down the side and break the attachment, but there are so many bees in the way. I tried nudging them and they didn't seem interested in moving. Any suggestions for how to break the attachment gracefully without smashing a bunch of bees.
2. As you can sort of see in the picture, some of the comb is a little off-center. My bars are 1.5 inches, and the first 5 or 6 combs are perfectly straight (yay!). I did insert some blank bars between some of the better comb, so they should build more straight comb from these. The last couple combs I'm not sure what to do with. They are a little off, and it was difficult to push them back to center. I'm not sure I did a good job of this, so again looking for some advice. Should I break the comb and re-attach, or just mash it back and let the bees fix it?
Amazing to watch them work. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Erik

I have two questions about handling the combs.
1. Many of the combs are attached to the sides. It sounds simple to slip your hive tool down the side and break the attachment, but there are so many bees in the way. I tried nudging them and they didn't seem interested in moving. Any suggestions for how to break the attachment gracefully without smashing a bunch of bees.
2. As you can sort of see in the picture, some of the comb is a little off-center. My bars are 1.5 inches, and the first 5 or 6 combs are perfectly straight (yay!). I did insert some blank bars between some of the better comb, so they should build more straight comb from these. The last couple combs I'm not sure what to do with. They are a little off, and it was difficult to push them back to center. I'm not sure I did a good job of this, so again looking for some advice. Should I break the comb and re-attach, or just mash it back and let the bees fix it?
Amazing to watch them work. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Erik