DON'T MAKE THIS BIG BEEKEEPING MISTAKE! Fixing Burr Comb / Cross Comb In A Beehive

I've done this more times than I would like to admit. I don't have enough frames on hand and tell myself "I'll go get more later." Then I forget and a week later I open the beehive and see a box full of burr comb. Burr comb is when bees fill up a space that's larger than the usual 3/8" bee space we leave in between frames. The result is honeycomb that is in different directions and connecting to other pieces of comb.

It's fascinating to see what the bees do when given a big empty space, but not fun for the beekeeper to fix. You have to fix it b/c you can't inspect the hive otherwise. Without frames in the box, the bees connect the comb to the lid and/or to the frames that the comb is sitting on.

Here's how I tackle this.

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[so_cal_mom]

It’s amazing how thick some of the combs are!

[leslieperez]

thanks for sharing that with us! very helpful! I have made some ooopsies like this while working the bees in the summer. the heat can get to us!

[mlmhopeify]

Thank you for making this video. I really needed to see this to correct mine.

[patriotridge]

I just love your videos. I've been keeping for 13 years and just fixed this today. Mine was the brood chamber extending down into the box below.
Wow what a mess.

[moniquelynwone]

Wow you did such a great job with all that honey comb ❤

[alexk]

I believe it is required to put boxes from on the left and right so that empty spaces can be used. In the middle frames inserted with wax, one has wax another doesn't. Otherwise they will make a mess like this. I wonder if theye selling boxes for this purpose.

[bradgoliphant]

Hello my friend, do you have a favorite place to buy your honey jars? And does it make a different to have plastic or glass jars for honey? Thanks

[LA-hxgj]

Do you know what kind of flowers your bees visit? My honey is very dark compared to yours. Yours looks very nice.

[DavidMcClanahan-wm]

ok I'm new and have foundationLESS(I know a mistake). Anyway I'm wondering why your bees are not eating you alive. I did similar with more "joy" than I could stand

[Rockinjm]

thank you, yes it is informative, somewhat to my situation, but needed to see more

[angelad]

@Beekeeping Made Simple how do you handle it if there is brood in the burr comb??? Do you give it back on empty frames even if it's not straight?

[Myowndoing]

I just wanna say thanks, this is going to help me😊😅

[scotthenderson]

What a mess. Did the bees survive all that honey dripping on them?

[tasmedic]

What do you do if you have a small colony in just one deep box or nuc, and you've got brood in all that cross comb? I wouldn't have thought you could just throw that in a container.

[MichelleMReynolds]

Take the top box off so your only running honey on the ground or in a tub, not back into your hive.

[jamielandry]

Could you have cut this whole box out with a wire like the Japanese do with blocks and taken the whole box away to ? I'm hoping to never make this mistake but I'm just curious if that would have worked?

[alexk]

япона улей, тобишь большой японский улей. large japanese beehive. Japanese people would not call it mistake. They have smaller behives.

[bradgoliphant]

Oh boy, what a mess! The one thing I keep reminding new beekeepers is if they catch a new swarm, or add a package of bees, in the beginning, that hive needs to be checked every 5 days until it's going in the right direction. Otherwise you get this.

[Jack-esxq]

A bee escape put between that problem box and the one below a day before the surgery would have cleared most of the bees from the problem box.

[southportwills]

Hi, I need help. I have inspected my hive today and discovered that my bees have made comb in the roof space above the brood box and the super. The comb is stuck to the crown board. The comb contains drone larvae and also queen cups. Please can you give me advise on what I should do now? I removed the queen excluder last year, and obviously the Queen has laid at the top of the hive. Help!!! Thank you in advance.