What should we do with this crooked comb?

2969 Views 8 Replies 8 Participants Last post by shubing, Apr 24, 2010

shubing

Discussion Starter · #1 · Apr 19, 2010

We did our first inspection of our TBH today which is two weeks after installing the package. We had noticed over that two weeks that the bees were clustering on one side of and to the back of the hive. When we opened the hive we found just two bars with comb on it and the comb was not straight but rather attached to the bar at an angle which brought it into the next bar. There was also comb in the bottom half of the hive that was not attached to any bars. All the comb contained honey and some pollen. We didn't see any brood nor did we see the queen.

The temps have been in the 50 & 60's during the day and in the 30 & 40's at night.

See below pics.

What should we do to straighten this mess out.

On a good note, the bees were calm and accepting of our intrusion, even without using smoke.

Thanks

Steve & Jeannie

Comb is at an angle

Comb in the bottom of the hive not attached to a bar

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Shazam

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Joined Mar 1, 2010

121 Posts

#5 · Apr 20, 2010

Also, did you paint the apex of the top bars with beeswax?

Melt down a bit of wax and using a brush or qtip draw a line along the base angle of the top bars to help give the bees some guidance.

The fact you don't see any larvae or the queen may be a bigger issue. I'm just over two weeks in and when I did my two week inspection, definitely had a good bit of larvae. (Not as much as honey, but they were well underway at that point.)