Thursday 16 May 2013

In For A Penny

We went into the hive for an inspection, and to see how the colony had managed with the broken comb. What we found was a mess. The new comb they were building was not in neat lines, following the bar, and more of the comb was stuck together at the top. It appeared they were trying to incorporate the comb lying on the bottom of the hive - unfortunately, there was still some brood they were tending.


The new bar had a collection of small starts, placed side by side and bulging at the top. We made a decision to pull the bar, which was mostly empty comb, and hope that the bees would start fresh, lining up against the older, straighter comb.

 
Adrian brushed the bees into the hive, and we pulled the comb to salvage the wax.  Now we just hope the bees will bounce back from all of the manhandling we've done.
 
 
 
 

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2 comments:

  1. Leigh25 May 2013 at 17:58

    You have a top bar hive! How interesting. It's been eons since I kept bees and that was before "natural" was applied to beekeeping. Very interesting to see photos of the bees work.

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  2. Ellen and Adrian27 May 2013 at 20:27

    I'm away from home right now, but curious to get back into the hive this weekend, and see what trouble they've gotten into in a two-week period. Adrian reports they haven't swarmed, and continue to be busy - bees are really fascinating and I could sit and watch them work for quite some time. We built our hive from plans off the internet (biobees) - perhaps you need yet another project for this winter...?

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