fixing the crooked comb

Yesterday I went back into the hive to see what had happened in the two weeks since I last moved frames around in my attempt to get them straight.

The frame full of brood that I had placed into the top box was almost completely hatched out, so I thought it was time to remove it and replace that comb with a piece of foundation.

I also removed two more frames from the bottom box that still had crooked comb on them. Neither had any brood on it, just uncapped honey and a bit of capped honey. I cut these pieces out of the frames and replaced them with more wax foundation.

All of the new frames went back into the deep hive box, the deep super came off, and the medium one went back on.

I had placed all of the comb I cut out into a bucket. I shook as much uncapped honey as I could out into the medium super so the bees could have it back, and then after brushing all of the remaining bees off, I put it in the laundry room with my bee stuff. I figured I could melt it down and add it to my growing beeswax collection.

A few hours later, I came back out to the laundry room for something, and noticed two little bees crawling across the floor. I scooped them up and put them back near the hive, figuring they must have been in my clothes or something.

And then I went back out there an hour later, and there were a couple more bees. I figured they had to be coming from the bucket of wax I'd brought in, but I was really sure I had gotten them all off.

Then I realized that they were just baby bees and they must have come out of the remaining capped cells that were in the one piece of comb.

I wasn't really sure what to do with them, so I took a few pictures and then put the whole bucket back in front of the hive so that they could hopefully find their way home.

Look how cute and fuzzy they are when they are brand new!

Fuzzy girl.

This poor baby ended up on the ground somehow. I snapped this picture because she was sticking out her tongue (that orangey thing). I picked her up and put her back with the others.

I've never seen such a furry little honey bee!

And now this morning, there was a massive bee party in, on and around the bucket of comb that I put back near the hive. I hope that they were all my bees drinking up the uncapped honey that was in there and not a band of robbers...

The bucket of bees. In this picture, that big piece of comb actually looks pretty nice. The bottom part is not. It had two layers of comb that each attached to the comb in the next frame. I felt bad pulling it out.

Sucking up all of the remaining uncapped honey from this piece.

This was a piece of capped comb that I had set aside, intending to eat when I was finished out there yesterday. Obviously I forgot about it, and the bees have cleaned every last drop of honey out of it.

I will say that yesterday's beekeeping experience was my favorite yet. I had all day, so there was no rush to finish up and I felt a whole lot more relaxed about the whole thing. I know it sounds crazy, but the bees were much calmer, too. 

Next time, I'm getting a picture of the queen. I saw her this time...but my hands were too sticky to right using my nice camera.