Comb being build out from frame? What to do?

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RichardK

House Bee
***
Joined
May 17, 2021
Messages
462
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257
Location
Perpignan, France
Hive Type
Dadant
Number of Hives
Ideally 3 to 5.
I've today done an inspection on the swarm I caught on 17th May. To my inexperienced eyes all looks good, the bees are busy building the comb out & I can see pollen in some cells. ON one of the frames though, the bees have build a 'lump' of comb out in two places as shown in the picture. I'm thinking I just scrape it off...is that right?
comb sticking out.png
 
Bees get quite creative, that looks like a bit of brace comb so just break it off as neatly as you can. They are drawing the foundation but sometimes they brace to the face of the adjacent frame, which can be annoying as it makes a mess of the comb.
 
That makes sense. I was worried it would at some point meet up with the adjacent frame / comb.
Thanks for such a swift response.
 
Your frame spacing may be a little off - check that your frames are pushed together. They do tend to draw the comb deeper at the top of an upper box i.e. where the transition between is brood and stores (pollen and honey) but this is easily scraped back with the hive tool.
 
Did you close the frames after checking, Richard?

Use a hive tool to lever and ram the Hoffmans and dummy board up tight each time you finish.
Yes I did - all back as I found them. Do you think they weren't sufficiently close in the first place, hence these bits of protruding comb? From memory they looked butted together.
 
Sometimes they just do it Richard, it's not unusual to see this with frames of foundation, even when tightly packed together. One of the things you tut and smile about.
 
Do you think they weren't sufficiently close in the first place, hence these bits of protruding comb? From memory they looked butted together.
No, this happens, you had a colony building comb on bare foundation, thry sometimes het a bit creative and try to bridge the gap instead of building out from the septum. I often get it in supers where they just build a strip at right angles to the foundation nd can be a right PITA
 
A new beekeeper problem. I try to get sets of brood frames drawn as a super during a good flow - OSR usually.

Frames can be cleared of honey at some cost by sticking them below the brood frames but I used to like extracting the odd 14 x 12 super tangentially. Not so keen these days (the full box is too heavy!).
 

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