bees have built comb on inside of hive

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SPEKKY

New Bee
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May 17, 2010
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Hi i need some advice please.

I housed or should i say hived my first new swarm (10,000approx) into a national brood box with undrawn foundation frames, i saw the queen go in so know she is there.

I left them for a week and when i next checked them i realised that the hive had been sitting at a slight horizontal angle. This meant that the frames had been hanging slightly away from the wall of the hive on one side. This has resulted in the bulk of the swarm drawing out their comb from the wall of the hive where the gap was! but also on the foundation of the closest frame.

When I pulled the frame out that is closest to the wall where the bees are congregating it "tore" alot of the foundation/comb away from the frame as it was attached to the wall.
So my question is this - do i scrape the comb off of the wall of the hive and, now that i have levelled the hive, put a new frame / foundation in and get them to start again, or do i leave them for a while and let them continue their work. they have started building good comb on the next 3 or 4 frames along.

my feeling is that i should leave them as i can inspect the other frames for eggs pollen etc. i dont want to disrupt their progress but if its the right thing to do then i will

i hope i have given enough information

thanks for any advice
 
From what I understand, most beekeepers would view this kind of additional "brace" comb as superfluous and a waste of bee energy, but it's not a huge problem.

On your next inspection, I would use your hive tool to scrape the brace comb off the inside wall of the hive (keep it for yourself if you can retrieve it; we all keep the wax leavings for other things).

Leave whatever comb has been drawn out of that frame, but just make sure it's unattached to the wall. It's not a huge problem, and you shouldn't agonise too much about it. It's just a neatness issue, a correct "bee space" thing, and efficient energy consideration.

You will see bees do amazing things to the foundation in the frames over time! They chew big gaps off, make secret cave-like structures and all sorts of things ...
 
I think it might be a good idea to remove it gradually, each inspection, so you don't rob them of laying/storage space in one big bang which could upset the balance of the population.

I guess the main problem with bracecomb is not being able to remove it for inspection to check for disease etc. If it's only a small part of the overall comb, this shouldn't be a big problem.

FG
 
did you count the 10,000?

JD
 
thanks for the help i will remove it bit by bit over next couple of weeks and encourage them to move onto the remaining frames. i should have said 10,000 +/- 1 or 2
 

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