Free Roaming Honeycomb

Today was a good day to check inside the hive. I had not been in there since hiving the bees, and I need to remove the queen cage, check to make sure the queen was laying eggs, and place the 10 frame into the hive in the space that the queens cage had been suspended.



To go inside of the hive one must have nerves of steel, or at least in my case a head to ankle beekeeper suit and a willingness to experience a massive amount of adrenaline. First task was to ready the smoker. The smoker creates smoke to make the bees easier to work with.



Why does smoke calm the bees? The bees are fooled into thinking that their home in a tree of a forest that is on fire. The best hope for survival of the hive is to keep everything cool. So, they begin fanning their wings very quickly to create a breeze and cool things down. During this time, they are not worried about much else.



I prepped my smoker by placing a wad of paper and some twigs into it. The ideal fuel is one that burns for some time and makes smoke. I opted to use pine twigs and pine cones. This seemed to work pretty well. The cones lit easily and made plenty of smoke. The smoker has a bellows that also acts as a handle. Pumping the bellows shoots a puff of smoke out of the nozzle.



As I opened the hive I also removed the top feeder as the bees are now able to feed themselves by foraging for flowers. Below that feeder is a board called the inside cover. I put a couple puffs of smoke at the hold in the top cover and waited for a moment for the girls to get the signal. I then pried the inside cover up slightly and puffed some smoke into the opening. I opened the cover and set it onto the outside cover such that it only contacted in a couple points to avoid hurting the bees.



A couple more puffs into the exposed frames, and I removed the queen cage. Since her cage created a gap between two of the frames, the bees decided this would be a good place to create some free roaming honeycomb. As amazing as their work is, the feral comb must be removed in order for the hive to be maintainable.

I pulled out the frame with feral comb on it and bracing it against the front of the hive, scraped it away. It was difficult to destroy such amazing work. I was also a little nerve racking having the clump with many bees on it drop the the ground.

I little more smoke for their nerves and mine.

I examined the frame to locate cells with larvae in them. These are my indicator that the queen is there and laying eggs. It is amazing holding one of these frames covered with bees on both sides.

The frames are designed to encourage the bees to create flat comb. The space between the frames limits their motion and tends to keep them from creating additional layers.

I pushed the frames together and inserted the 10th frame for the first time.





In a couple weeks I will check the hive again and if 7 of the 10 frames have a good covering of comb I will add the second box with another 10 frames.




I brushed off all the bees on the comb now laying on the ground, keeping them near the hive entrance.



The whole process took probably 20 minutes, and my danger needle was pegged the entire time. The sound of 6000 bees fanning their wings furiously is impressive. After a quick check from Rhonda to ensure none of the girls were riding into the house on me, I went inside and laid down, to wind down and recover.






Below is a scan of the largest comb piece. (Our scanner is an Epson, not a Honeywell ;-)