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Author Topic: weird spot for honey comb??  (Read 2654 times)

Offline chux

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weird spot for honey comb??
« on: July 01, 2013, 04:16:34 pm »
First year with bees. I caught a smallish swarm in mid april. They are doing wonderful in the TBH I built. There are several bars of brood comb. The colony has grown well. In a quick inspection the other day I noticed a strange thing. At the "back" of the hive (bars farthest from entrance), the bees have brood comb for three bars. On the 4th bar back, there is a solid comb of capped, and being capped, honey. Then there is more brood comb. In several of the farther back bars, there is honey in the top and side, but also plenty of brood. Even eggs and uncapped larvae.

Since there are eggs on both sides of the solid honey comb, the queen must be accessing both sides. Should I move this comb to the back, just to separate it and make sure the queen doesn't get stuck? Or should I leave it alone and trust the bees to do what needs to be done? I was expecting all of the honey combs to be at the back of the hive.

Offline nietssemaj

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Re: weird spot for honey comb??
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2013, 04:47:59 pm »
I'd move it just for your purposes as it makes it easier to inspect and remove honey without disturbing the brood nest.

However, as you've seen. In a TBH, the queen won't cross honey rule doesn't apply. All of my TBH's the queen will put eggs in any comb she can get them in. Even if that means in the back on new comb behind 3-4 bars of fat honey comb.

 It seems to be a constant battle between her and the workers.

Offline Leather Jim

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Re: weird spot for honey comb??
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2013, 05:32:26 pm »
Ya sure you don't have two queens in that TBH? One at each end. How many entrances?  Just wondering.

Offline chux

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Re: weird spot for honey comb??
« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2013, 10:26:51 am »
100% positive that there is only one queen. This was a small swarm capture this year. There have been no swarm or supercedure cells.

 

anything