Foundationless Failure...and Attempted Solutions

WHEN FOUNDATIONLESS FAILS

Two days after discovering the mess that was my new natural foundationless hive, I went back into the now-leveled (better late than never!) hive on June 8th. Boy oh boy, what a mess. The bees had produced too much comb--a nice problem to have. But this was not going to be an easy process.

I'd had lots of good advice from Beemaster.com.

1) Michael Bush said that if the hive was level, I could unattach the comb from one frame and just push it over to align it with the other frame. Unfortunately, I thought I had a bit too much comb to do this, as you can see from this picture. However, I've been heavily influenced by his Beekeeping Naturally web site to try a more natural approach to beekeeping, so for some frames, that's exactly what I did.

2) Others suggested rubber banding the comb into the frames. I pulled out the first frame and immediately had the new comb come unattached...and drop on the ground. This seemed like a good time to test that rubber banding idea...and pray my queen wasn't laying on the ground outside the hive. Later, I used multiple rubber bands, including one big one going vertically, to hold in the comb.

But here is a picture of my first feable attempt. The single rubber band method is pretty precarious. You judge for yourself.

I think I managed to take this picture right before the comb fell out and on the ground again.

Moments later, I find myselft with two chunks of comb on the ground, bees crawling all over it; a frame precariously perched on the hive; rubber bands everywhere, not to mention bees; and my hands are a sticky mess from accidentally crushing honey comb as I tried to pick it up. So I'm trying to clean up, sucking honey off my fingers. My first honey, yum!

This of course is when the smoker goes out. I figured that with all these bees exposed, I better get that going again. All I had was dead grass, but I got it going...for a few minutes.

3) The third suggestion was to put foundation in every other frame or every third frame. I did this, too. However, it was kind of random. If it looked like there was going to be an awful mess, I put in every other frame. If it looked like the bees might be able to figure it out, I put foundation in every third frame.

Here is another picture near the end of the process, when the hive is highly exposed. You can see two pieces of comb laying on top of the frames. Two frames are perched on top; one of the frames has straight comb! This frame was just beginning to be drawn out when I leveled my hive a couple of days ago. Seems to have made a difference, though a few beekeepers have told me that the level was not the problem--sometimes bees just do this.

Looking at this is when I decided to add another medium super. I had a lot of comb, and not really enough room for it. Adding a super motivated me to save all the comb I could (with rubber bands). Of course, I wasn't prepared. I had to go back to the house, glue some more popsickle sticks into frames (for more foundationless), get the smoker going again (this time it was a bonfire, sucker did not go out again).

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That was on June 8th. It's now June 12th and I can't wait to get back into the hive to see if these approaches worked. A couple more days, as it's raining now.