I have two new hives. I checked and feed them yesterday. I wasn't wearing my gear at first and got stung on the forehead. Today my eyes and forehead are pretty puffy. I think I will not forget next time.
My bees seem to be busy making comb and the queen was running around on a frame. The only thing I didn't understand was that the bees were making empty comb in-between two frames and it extended up into the feeder. This is on both of my hives. I removed this empty comb because it is in my way to examine the bees. I was wondering if this is normal or if I am forgetting to do something. I have 8 frame med supers on.
If your frames are pushed together and the extra space in your hive is on the outsides of the frames at the sides of the super, you are doing it right. If the bees are filling in a little with wax between the tops of the frames (but not between the frames along side your foundation) and are putting a little comb between the top of the frames and the feeder, that is fairly common. Those cells are usually bigger than the worker cells and the queen lays drones in them this time of year. They have been a real pain in the ---- to clean out between supers this year. You may want to check on your next inspection and see how many frames they have drawn out. If all but 1 or 2 have been drawn, it is time to add another super. If they run short of space, they will put comb where they can (and if they are my bees this year, even if you give them space, they will swarm).
While I am a newbee just like you, it is typical for them to fill up any open space... and feeders seem to be common from reading other forums.......you did the right thing by cleaning it up before it gets too much.
Ouch on the sting, while I have been happy to work with Wally on the swarms without a veil, I use it on my own hives, also got a sting reaching out in front of hive to pull out the bottom board to check it, also swelled up for 4 days , Benedryl did help a lot after day 3 (forgot to try it before then ) Now a bottle and the under tongue melts are in my bee box.
Thanks for the information. I will check when I go back in - I am not sure if the frames were all pushed to the middle when I looked or not. I had already been stung and was really just trying to concentrate and not panic. The cool thing was that my kids all took a piece of the comb to school today to show their friends.
So, if the bees build comb on the inside of the super on the walls, it is probably for drones? Should I leave that? I had it right down the center. I removed all I could because I want them to complete the frames in the super, not lay some crazy pattern of their own that will keep me from easily getting the frames out for inspection.
I have two supers for each with wax foundation and one super for each with the plastic/wax coated kind. Should I be checkboarding that into the existing super of wax frame now or wait until the bees have at least one super full?
Michelle....no pics of being stung??? Those are always great pics.....just to prove my point, here is one of me when I was stung in the head...some people say my wife "stung" me with the frying pan!!!
