The comb in the bottom smelled bad was almost completely slimed and was full of maggots. I scraped it into a trash bag, sealed it up and threw it away.
We did get some honey from the top comb.
I opened up this wall from under the roof side because I knew that there was a good chance it would bee raining before we finished.
Notice Judy and Meloney looking intently at the sky. A loud lightning bolt just hit almost directly over us.
The comb goes up another 10 inches above the opening this makes it very hard to remove the comb without cutting bees that are up on top of the comb. Every time I hurt a bee, her best friend has to come out and take her revenge on me. Surprisingly very few did. It also did not help having one inch long staples sticking out through the remaining wall. They were a constant threat to my hands and made it very hard to scrape the remaining wax and honey off of the wood.
By the way, this was in a large senior assisted living center. If I did not smoke these bees properly and keep them calm throughout the whole process, we would have had some very upset bees and we could have had people being stung everywhere in this complex. We had a parade of people walking by the whole time we were working.
What I am saying is do not do a cut out in an area like this until you have enough removals under your belt to know how to keep the bees calm. This is not the place for beginners to be doing cutouts.
Jim Altmiller