A Sad Tale of Shattered Wax

When the trick-or-treaters had gone on Halloween, I was left with a lot of candy. Well, that's not exactly true. I live in a neighborhood of 80 year old people and there are very few children....so I never get any trick-or-treaters on Halloween, but I always buy a bag of Three Musketeers, just in case this is the year when someone actually says "Trick or Treat!" at my door.

Sadly, this year was no different - no kids in costume knocked at my door. To keep from eating the candy, I took it to my downstairs refrigerator to freeze it. When I opened the upper door to the freezer compartment, a practically unused box of 7/11 foundation, stored in the freezer, crashed to the floor and broke into shards of wax.

The bees made beautiful comb from this wax last year and I made boxed and cut comb honey from it. Now it's all in pieces.

I guess I have several choices. I could save the shards and put partial strips in honey supers next year so the bees could get a start at drawing the beautiful wax for cut comb boxes. I could melt it all into candles.

Lesson learned: Don't store foundation in the freezer.

I should know this. I overnighted some comb-filled frames in the chest freezer to kill wax moths and dropped one when I took it out. That comb also shattered into pieces of wax.

Other items from Today's Inspection

I have crossed my fingers throughout the honey season that Bermuda, my weak hive that barely made it through the winter, would survive until next winter. I have not had any expectations of getting honey from that hive. The hive is thriving now and bustling with bees. It is the hive from which I got the frames of brood and eggs for my nuc and Proteus Bee.

Today I was pleased to find honey being capped in the hive. The third box on Bermuda is a box of 7/11 comb. As you can see from the picture the bees are making gorgeous white wax cappings and are in fact making honey. The honey in these frames looked darker than what I have harvested so far.

I love how the bees circle damage in a comb and quickly go to work to save their hard work from spilling out on the ground. Look at the circle of bees surrounding the lower right of the comb where a bridge was broken between this frame and the next.

I also did powdered sugar shakes over the brood boxes in Proteus A, Bermuda, and Mellona.

Last week when I opened Mellona, I noticed that it was honey bound in the same way that Proteus A had been. I removed frames 3, 5, and 7 from the second box and replaced them with starter strip frames. I moved those honey frames to the box above (Box 4) in positions 3, 5, and 7. I didn't know what I would find when I opened the box today.

You can see the bees festooning as they draw wax in the starter strip frame. Frame 3 was being drawn with large cells as if for more honey storage. However, the cells in frame 5 measured 5.2 so I think the queen may lay there and expand the brood nest into the next box, where I've tried to make her welcome.

The Swarm is Making Queen Cells!

I inspected all the hives this morning - just a perfunctory check to determine which hives (if any) needed new supers. I started with Mellona. The first picture is the beautiful honey being stored on 7/11 foundation and being capped in this picture. This hive is such a workhorse. They had filled every frame in this super and I added another with 7/11 foundation for more chunk honey or crush and strain if I wish.

I then checked Bermuda who is beginning to move into the third box. They have a way to go yet, though. I removed two frames of 7/11 that I had put into that box last week. The frames hadn't been touched by the bees and I needed it in the box I added to Mellona. I pushed the 8 frames together and will add two more with starter strips of SC before I go to work in the morning.

Proteus continues to make creative comb, although now the bees are staying inside the boundaries of the frame. The second picture is one of the combs created by Proteus from a crush and strain comb from last year. You can see the remnants of last year's comb on the bottom bar of the frame.

A friend of mine who is deeply into mythology and ritual suggested that I have a name-changing ritual to take Proteus and change its name to something that doesn't include shape-changing (as done by the god for whom Proteus is named!) Then perhaps the hive would improve its comb-building ability!

Finally I checked on my tiny swarm hive. On Saturday, the 12th, I gave them two frames from Bermuda with eggs and very young brood. If they were able to start queen cells from the eggs, that should be evident by now, nine days later. I was thrilled to find open queen cups on one frame and one prominent and very big queen cell along with a couple of others that were smaller. You can see it in the lower left of the third picture. Also you can see the opened queen cups to the right.

I'm so excited that these girls are on the right track. I moved the five frames to a nuc box where they will stay until they get bigger. I've been feeding them 1:1 sugar syrup and will continue that in the nuc box. I also plan to add another frame of capped/emerging brood to increase their numbers.

In the last picture you can see the tiny nuc hive, rather dwarfed by the towering Mellona that now has four (4) honey supers on it!

Mellona is Bursting at the Seams

Mellona needs a new super. I put one on last Friday with starter frames in Housel positioning. Today that box is filled and all but two frames are fully capped! I was supposed to go to the mountains tonight, but I'm leaving in the morning because I needed to give Mellona a new box....how exciting!

Since I don't know if the Housel positioning was the reason Mellona did so well, I decided to go with it again. Again I didn't make a center frame but rather had the "y"s on each side of center facing up toward the outside of the box.

Mellona is making such beautiful honey that I am setting this super up for cut comb honey. I am using new frames with thin surplus wax foundation in six of them and some new 7-11 foundation that I ordered from Walter T. Kelley company at Michael Bush's suggestion. Michael says it makes pretty cut comb honey. The cell size is halfway between worker comb and drone comb. I put it on two frames and did starter strips on two more frames to fill out the honey super.


Looking at the pictures of these frames, you'll see HP for Housel positioning with an arrow. When you do Housel Positioning, you want the "y" in the center of the embossed cells to be facing upwards on the side of the frame facing the outside of the box. So I noted HP for Housel Positioning and the arrow to indicate which side of the frame should go toward the outside of the box. On the four 7/11 frames, I noted that as well and I put 2007 on these frames to let me know what year I began using them.

I think the picture below will demonstrate Housel Positioning. If you look at the "flower" made of seven cells of foundation in this picture, you can see that the "y" in each cell is facing up. The rougher edges mark the outside of each cell and the "y" is more faded looking.


I used my now trusty wax tube fastener to wax the foundation into the frames and poured the leftovers into my beeswax bar mold and the remainder into a bread pan for the next waxing event!

Bees fill in foundation just as predicted

Just as the experts on Beemaster predicted, the bees in Bermuda have filled in the gaps on the honey super and extended the wax to meet the frame. As you can see in these pictures, they are filling in the comb with honey and are making the wax to bridge the gap.

In one foundation frame, the foundation had come loose from the top of the frame and the bees had attached it to the comb of the next frame. I just picked those two frames up together. If they did that with all the frames, I'd have a real mess on my hands, but I think so far that's the only one.

My busier hive, Destin, had not even touched the honey super and had not dealt with the short foundation yet. However, they will be there soon. The medium super was extremely heavy with brood and honey, so there's nowhere for them to go but up to the honey super.