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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here. Along the way, I've passed a number of certification levels and am now a Master Beekeeper! Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Poor Frame Management - Oops!


I had to take Bermuda all the way down to the ground today (see previous post) and in doing so, I removed one box to find this under it. This is burr comb and the bees build it when there is space above the frames.

This occurrence means that in the box above this one on frame three I have put a shallow frame, rather than a medium one. Usually the bees build drone comb when they put brood in burr comb. You can see the drone cappings on the right side of the picture and an opened cell that was ripped when I removed the box above.

I was deeply disturbing the hive today because I had to repair the screened bottom board. I didn't remove this comb or try to fix the situation. I decided to note the frame and fix the situation on a calmer day.

On the top (newest) box in Bermuda, I noticed the last frame in the box was sitting up above the box top edge. (See it at the far right?) All week I had observed that the top cover was sitting askew, but didn't think anything of it. Well, this frame is why the top wouldn't go down. I had not pushed it into the box fully!

This error I did fix before putting the hive back together!

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