# Official new beek with quick question



## Jlockhart29 (Apr 29, 2016)

Leave it to a government institution to charge 3 times what a private carrier charges to move 3 lbs of bees 300 miles from Georgia to South Arkansas by way of Dayton Ohio, 3 days priority mail and take 5 days!inch: I have about to have a stroke but the arrived this morning with probably less than 75 dead bees and queen with all attendants alive and kicking. Late in the year but got to give Pigeon Mountain a shout out. Shipped the morning they were supposed to and weighed 4.22 lbs of bees. Very happy. Install went great. Fatbee Man top hive feeder on and the girls were slurping it down. My question is the girls had built several combs about 5 inches around in the crate. I have a hive of wild bees in an oak about 30 yards from my Warre. They are hot. What should I do with the comb? I don't want to start robbing leaving it out front but hate to waste it. Suggestions? Thanks.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

There is probably nothing in that come and the work involved in banding it into frames or waxing to the top bar is nust not worth messing with just save it in your wax bucket you will add to it throughout the year. and soon have enough for candles or whatever.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

What you do is build a feeder shim so you can place the honey above the brood nest and the colony will clean it out from inside the hive. Set the combs horizontal on top of your bars. No robbing! 
Feeder shim is a bee box about 2 inches tall that's the same dimensions of your warre hive. Good luck.


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## Jlockhart29 (Apr 29, 2016)

Well I actually made a "feeder shim" as it were and in my case caused more trouble. Since I only used one box when I installed my package I made a little "queen ring" between my top bars and the feeder. Bees were drinking my 1:1 like crazy and after 4 days I checked to see if they had released the queen yet. Sure enough they had but to my horror they had almost filled the "queen ring" with comb and bees. Nothing under the bars. Since this is a modified hive with full frames I had to do something. I'm sure the queen was in this mess but all I could think to do was pull the comb which was stuck to the bottom screen off of the feeder, lay them on the top bars and smoke'em down into the bottom box hoping I ran the queen down and didnt manage to run her off or squish her in the process. The comb was full of pollen and sugar and now they had nothing again. I felt bad for my bugs so I gave them the afternoon to get what they could. It has now been 4 more days and they are building comb like crazy UNDER the bars where they should. Just hope there is a queen there. When do I need to go back in and look for brood/Queen to make sure I have a queen?


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

that's a real good way to get them robbed out - also - if you through that comb into the hive - I have seen bees reuse the wax on new combs - just like when they strip wax from the plastic frames


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## Jlockhart29 (Apr 29, 2016)

sakhoney said:


> that's a real good way to get them robbed out - also - if you through that comb into the hive - I have seen bees reuse the wax on new combs - just like when they strip wax from the plastic frames


I just left it out that afternoon but had reservations even then. I wanted them to reuse the wax as well but it isn't really big enough to band into a frame and no real way to put it into the hive. Besides they had been mess with so much I wanted to just let them be. So far as long as I'm still queened everything is looking good. Slugging down the 1:1 and building comb.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

don't band it to a frame - throw it in the hive on the bottom board - they will go down and chew it up and stick it back where they need it - on a swarm that's a lot of wasted wax - and it could hold a lot of brood & honey. Plus - you see all that pollen? - that's brood feed and that's a lot of trips for the bees - just to be trashed - but hey - there not mine


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