I've known for a while that the girls in my queen breeder hive were building cross comb. I'd stuck an aluminum baffle in there to try to force them to straighten up but they just build cross comb under it and up to the top. Still crossed.
Jared came to town for a couple days so we decided it was time to cut it out and straighten it up.
We made quite a mess. Harvested some of the honey comb as it was too heavy for the hair clips.
The hair clips work great. At least for partial combs. Full combs are a bit too heavy for them.
We cut the crooked comb out clipped it on the top with a couple of hair clips and then secured the hair clips to a top bar with zip ties. Because the comb was diagonal before we cut it out, some of it was too wide to fit when we straightened it out and it needed to be cropped down anyway.
The bees were remarkably calm through the entire process. We didn't see the queen. I hope we didn't damage her.
Lessons learned:
Have the clips ready beforehand so I'm not assembling them as we go.
Use smoke instead of the feather. It's easier to handle the comb if it isn't crawling with bees.
Perhaps a bee vacuum would be beneficial - remove all the bees first, then manipulate the comb. I'd probably not kill so many bees that way.
It takes longer than I planned - don't rush it.
Perhaps a bucket or two under the hive to salvage dropped honey?
Cutting out honey comb
You can see the failed comb baffle after some of the comb is removed.
Hair clips in action
Later that night - bees still worked up a bit.
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