# First Cut-out, now what



## WesG (Jul 21, 2016)

Completed a removal Sunday. Long hive between wall studs. Honeycomb was separated from brood comb by about two feet (brood was located below). Two sections of comb from above fell into the brood and made for very damaged brood covered with lots of honey. I put the least damaged brood into frames (a total of 5 deep frames and three mediums). Placed eight medium frames above my deep and bumped the bees in. Unsure if I got the queen. Moved the hive two days later with plenty of bees and a lot of the honey being cleaned off the bottom board. I have lots of questions.
1. How long do I wait to open the hive?
2. With it being mid-July in Central Texas, how do I know whether and how soon to feed them?
3. Any problems with feeding them back their own honey?
4. How long may it take for the brood comb to get fixed to the frames?
5. How resilient is brood comb to physical damage (the weight of the two sections that fell was easily5-8lbs each. As you might imagine, all of the comb was coated with honey.
Appreciate insights y'all can share. I made plenty of mistakes to learn from....should I every bee tempted to do a cut-out in July again.


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## Weallneedbees (Mar 12, 2016)

1- I wait until they've thrown rubber bands out the from door. +- 10 days. Longer is fine, let them work.
Sometimes I get too busy and don't get to them until they are already packing in pollen. If the activity at the hive entrance starts looking normal I don't really worry much. 

2. Depends on how much of their honey you have them. It's hard to over feed but I often decide when I eventually open them up. If I know they are short to begin with I open feed.

3. You can give them back their honey, dirty honey covered tools, honey covered saw dust etc. They will even clean your bee suit if you used one. It is best if they have somewhere to put that honey. If there isn't much empty comb I add a frame our two.

4. Wait for the rubber bands. See answer one.

5. Pretty resilient. They will clean it up and deal with dead brood if there are any. 

That's what works for me. Other folk might think differently but I didn't want you to have to wait any longer for a reply. I remember how badly I wanted to know things were alright.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

wes - how did you attach the comb to the frames?
Yes the bees will clean everything up - on feeding back - I would wait until they get settled - a week or two.
When feeding back I have found that if you take an excluder and place it on top - then add another box - you can put the honey in there - even laying on its side and they will move it below the excluder - I would uncap it first
As far as attaching the comb to the frames - if you have it touching the top bar - and you should - some hair clips works good for this and tie wraps as well - they make it a high priority to get it attached - could be as soon as a couple of days - they'll rob wax where they can for this action.
honey coating the brood does way less damage than folding it


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## WesG (Jul 21, 2016)

Thank you both!
The brood comb is attached with rubber bands and I tried to match size of comb as to whether I put it in a medium frame or a deep frame. I am curious if the bees will chew off the rubber bands that quickly (?10days) then the hair pins or ties sound pretty important.
I probably allowed gravity to allow the brood comb to be closer to the bottom bar than the top bar...that isn't sounding so great.
THANKS AGAIN


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