Seventh Week

No matter how hard you try to raise them right, sometimes they just go out and do whatever they want to do, leaving you to fix things and make it right again. Sunday evening I went down to check on the hive since I hadn't looked in for a few days. First I checked on the one feeder that was left in there. It still had about a quarter of the sugar water left. I removed the feeder since they are not really using it anymore. I closed that part of the hive back up and moved into the section the bees occupy. I removed the back three bars so I could peek in. I could see one small comb on the left side of Bar 8 being built and then that's when I saw something I didn't think I was going to have to deal with. After seven bars of nice straight comb, one group decided to try something new on the eighth bar and build from one bar to the another, better known as cross-combing.


Carefully I separated the bars enough to see the attached comb. I eased a bread knife into the slit and began to attempt cutting them apart. The cross-comb released from the bar and fell to the floor of the hive, but fortunately, the full comb on Bar 7 stayed put. I started to get the small comb from the floor and reattach it correctly since they had already started filling some of the cells, but since it was so small I decided to move it to the back by the divider board and let them clean it out and start a new comb. I removed it after two days and it was all clean.



It is getting hot here now with temperatures in the upper 90's every day so I have cut back on moving bars around and doing full hive inspections. I was curious about the other bars though after this and so I slowly moved three bars back just to make sure things were alright, Everything is still looking good. These two pictures are of Bar 5.



This is the other small comb on Bar 8 being built correctly.


When I went to remove the fallen comb on Tuesday, I checked on Bar 8 again. They had already made good progress on a replacement comb, this time following the guide strip. I put the fallen comb in my freezer in case I need it down the road.

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