Wonky comb

  • 19 Aug 2024 10:05 AM
    Reply # 13395558 on 13361681

    Definitely not at Allens level of experience but at this late point in the season the bees are very unlikely to draw fresh comb. If you have a hive that is full of Burr or Franken comb maybe just leave it be until spring and then move the bees into a new hive body and fresh frames for them to draw out. If you feel that you have to straighten something out then you can sometimes find some straight sections and cut those out and wire them into some empty frames using fishing line or even rubber bands, a really messy sticky job but you can come up with some more or less useable frames that way.

    Hope that helps

  • 16 Aug 2024 2:15 PM
    Reply # 13394789 on 13361681
    Anonymous

    Thanks for that reply, Allen. Never heard about the North-South idea. My boxes are oriented with the entrance facing east, to get morning sun on them.

    And yes I have lots of irregular comb, especially on newly drawn foundation. They like to make blobs rather than even sheets of comb, and make them thick so it intrudes into the frame next to it.

    I always wonder how much to trim and groom those frames. One box I have came from a captured swarm and has no foundation. The combs are stuck together and hard or impossible to pull out and inspect.

    What do you do with that?

  • 16 Aug 2024 7:22 AM
    Reply # 13394607 on 13361681
    Allen Engle (Administrator)

    Tim,

    Sorry about the delay, just saw this post.  It's comb that the bees drew out incorrectly (according to we beekeepers (crosscomb or frankencomb in the vernacular)) then are raising a few babies, in the pupal stage.  It sometimes happens, especially on new foundation when there's too much space between the frames.  I usually say that you should scrape off the misshapen comb and put the foundation next to some drawn out comb to get it closer to a bee space gap.  Remember that the bees don't "think" there's anything wrong so will not "correct" it without your intervention.  If not "corrected" they will continue to build even more cross comb making it impossible to inspect or manipulate without causing a lot of damage and mess.

    A second philosophy that some experienced beekeepers successfully adhere to is to is to orient the frames to magnetic North/South to reduce the crosscombing tendency.

    Good luck.

  • 24 May 2024 11:22 PM
    Message # 13361681

    Eventful day today. One of my hives swarmed, and we caught them.

    That's the short version. Inspecting the hives, I found one much stronger than the other, and both of them had lots of burr comb and cross combing. The new foundation they have drawn out has lots of mis-shaped comb in columns and blobs below the frames.

    Can anyone explain what these wonky shapes are?



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