Brood comb built off the queen excluder

[DomB]

Hi,

I took on a friend's old hive recently which is good and strong but needs a bit of a 'tidy up'.

The brood chamber has a a queen excluder on top and I've noticed that the chamber is missing about 3 or 4 frames. The bees have filled in that gap with 'wild comb', i.e. not in frames, which is hanging off the Queen excluder.

I want to remove the excluder entirely and fill the brood chamber with frames but I'm not sure the best route to get to that happy place.

I have spare boxes and frames. And I'm happy to destroy the queen excluder if I need to.

Has any one any thoughts on how I might get to the point where i have, ideally, two brood chambers filled with frames and no wild comb all while minimising my losses and the chance of losing my Queen?!

Hope that all makes sense; thanks in advance for any replies!

 

[Beefriendly]

Assuming the comb attached to the QEx lift out...take them all out. Cut them away and fit into empty brood frames. Secure with elastic bands/string/kebab skewers etc and put them back.
However, if firmly attached to brood box sides might be tricky...in which case detach from QEx and see what you can do from there.

 

[enrico]

A piece of thin wire is brilliant for cutting straight edges of comb.
E

 

[fatshark]

If it's warm enough and they've plenty of stores I'd make a double brood box colony with the wild comb above (i.e. turn through 180 degrees) the rest of the colony. Fill the gaps below with new drawn frames and the space above with bubblewrap. Let the brood above emerge, add a clearer to get them all into the bottom box and you should be good to go.

All this assumes the Q is below at the start and they're not beautiful flat plates of wild comb that can easily be a) removed and b) fitted into frames.

And as indicated above, that you can easily lift out the wild comb attached to the QE.

 

[DomB]

Thanks all.

I love the idea of letting them all go down into another brood box and having the wild comb empty out naturally over time. Just not sure I'll find the Queen and get her on the right side of a clearer though! Will go look at clearers.

Thanks all for the great help

 

[Finman]

Thanks all.

I love the idea of letting them all go down into another brood box and having the wild comb empty out naturally over time.

Thanks all for the great help

Combs have now brood for winter bees. Cut the excluder now that queen can move around and clear the situation next summer.