Oh good. I was concerned I’d get stung on a cheek! lol.
@Webclan - dont apologies for your English, it’s no doubt far better than me trying to speak your native language! Thanks all the more for contributing!!
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Hi Barbara,
I do not have the priveledge to know you personally n only from a long distance n but I enjoy your words. It seems you have learned much about bees n are becoming a fine beekeeper.
I’m curious ! What is your native tongue if you don’t mind ? I did finally get the joke n had a smile or two about the sheets 
. I understand sounds n words …
For the last 10 or 12 years now I’ll tried to learn n improve my second language. I read n write some Vietnamese but hearing n speaking is not so easy. It is difficult for my old ears to listen to the suttle difference/tones that change words meaning. My students n I have enjoyed more than one laugh n chuckle saying things wrong 
. For the last 5 or 6 years I’ve enjoyed trying to teach older Vn people my English language. As I have not accomplished totally teaching these people talking good English we accomplished another. We have all become very close friends n some are almost family like my own.
Wow ! I’m as often be very off the subject … Oh well … Moving on ! Have a great day ! Now off to bed …, 
Cheers n blessings,
Gerald
Ich glaube… Deutsch! 
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Hi @Dawn_SD and @Gerald_Nickel.
Yes, German. Dawn is great at deduction. No fooling that woman, even never intended to, just a feeling.
Gerald, you are a great one to drift off into story, that makes our forum so pleasurable and personal. We can drift off and then go back to it. We are not just new beeks, we are people meeting, people from all walks of life and all over the World.
It is wonderful we can here form personal relationships, maybe it’s a flow thing.
And of course, we could always go into the private message feature.
Once I get my pic uploading sorted I will post elsewhere and tag you guys. You are such an inspiration to me.
Will still be quite busy with work and stuff, as last few days, so don’t forget about me and my bees just as yet. Will be back.
Looking forward to see how @GeekGardenCook is getting on.
Cheers all.
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Thank you to you all, I love how there are so many ways to deal with this problem . Webclam is right , a great forum.
I worry about Gerald taking photos up on his roof, it’s a goodern though , but be careful Gerald !!!
how much money are you doing to apiculture ?
Right folks. We had a crack at this today and can only say it was an Epic failure. It’s clear that I left the cross comb go for far too long so when we (finally) managed to get the first frame out was a total mess. The 2nd frame came out a little easier but again, a massive mess.
We made the call to stop and just put the new Brood Box (with foundation frames) on top of the existing brood box. The Flow Super is on the very top and is 90% full. I didn’t raid it just yet I didn’t want to distress the bee’s too much now.
Here’s some pic’s. As always, would welcome your thoughts and comments. FYI I was only stung 4 times! lol
Video to come!
I see what you mean. A real mess. Still, I would go about it. Harvest any clean honey comb and reframe the brood bits, if there are any. Wonder if you are queen right, didn’t study your pics too closely, but didn’t see any brood on a glance. Maybe you just showed the outside frames?
You need a good bee suit and slowly sort it unperturbed. You shouldn’t get seriously stung in a good suit.
The thing is, in our beautiful coastal Australia, our bees may gather all year round. Now that nectar and pollen are still in reliable supply, the bees will find the resources to get their building materials easily. Waiting for spring when their numbers have increased, this clean up may be more of a nightmare, but with a 'bee excluder’no prob.
Sure there are other options. Personally, I like a clean tidy brood box to be able to control those pesky SHB and wax moths, especially if I add extra space.
Your situation is just the challenge I would want to catch up on learning and experience. Wish I was closer, coz I am jealous of your task at hand.
I just remember, didn’t Michael Bush say you could turn the box on its head and retrieve it? You would have to cut along the walls of the box first I suppose, so it all comes lose.
If at all possible, I would try to turn the whole mess without box over onto its natural side again to avoid more honey running out of the cells. I would decide that in situ.
But then, you could just put another box on and leave the mess to deal with later. Except, your flow frames filling will slow way down right now, coz the bees are busy building out a new box.
Decisions decisions
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Yep I’m with Webclan, I’d have broken it apart and cleaned it up, yeah it’s messy and seems terribly disruptive but it’s only short term and you’ll have the colony long term. After you’ve cleaned up the frames it’ll be easier next time which I’d imagine you’d need to do the same only on a smaller scale and eventually you will have nice tidy manageable comb. As Webclan says you may need to replace a frame or two but the bit of hard work will be worth it.
The experience gained whilst doing so will be invaluable and once done you will be proud of yourself.
Look at what I had to deal with for my first colony… A box of frames would be a piece of cake now. 
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Thanks both. Was pretty hectic and i was sweating through my suit!
When you say “clean up” the frame what do you? Should I drop those frames back in or switch them out for a foundation frame?
Re Brood - there was plenty in there. as I was cutting I could see the white larvae and tried to avoid them.
I’ve left those 2 wrecked frames up at the hive.I’ll grab them tomorrow and if they are clean enough I’ll shape them into a good frame, elastic band them and stick them in.
Massive mess without a doubt. Upside though- I’m not so scared of bee stings. 4 of them, including on the neck, I could handle in short amount of time.
I’m certainly no expert so I’m only giving my opinion of what I would do.
With the frames it’s a judgement call as to whether to cull the comb or cut the comb back flush. You will kill brood and bees whilst you are doing it no getting around that. You should find and isolate the queen on a frame in another box before starting the clean up process. Frames can be gradually moved to the outside of the bb or up into the super to clear them of brood before replacing. I’m a fan of using foundation in the brood box and alternate foundation foundationless in the super, cleaning up a wonky foundationless bb frame wouldn’t be much fun and elastic bands would be beneficial.
Once you get in and start cutting and rearranging it ain’t so bad and once you’re finished its quite a buzz.
Get in there, get your hands dirty and good luck. 
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Yeah the thing is, and what made us stop, was we couldn’t any of the frames out with serious cutting i.e putting a sharp knife through the frames. So we couldn’t locate the queen without fear of cutting her up (along all the other bee’s & brood).
I’ll be going to the local Beek Meet on Wednesday so I’ll see if I can get a guru to come and look. this is beyond my skill level…for now.
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How did you go with it Lincoln? Hoping your guru was able to reduce this down to a single box to help the colony recover from this and you used the foundation to prevent more cross combing in the future… Keen to hear an update.
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Thanks for asking @Rodderick
I had a chat to a few guru’s and showed them pictures. General view was in our area it’s best to leave it now till spring (though I do need to replace the 2 frames I took out with foundation frame to stop them cross combing the gap). They also agreed that putting a 2nd brood box is fine but check it in a few weeks to make sure they are actually building up into it.
Come spring, confirm the queen is in 2nd brood box and take away the bottom brood box (cross comb).
I know it’s not an exact science so I’m going to run with that approach and see what happens. I’ll report back as I know more.
Here’s a youtube vid of the episode - complete with me running away with a bee in my suit!
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Just realised I posted the long version. Here’s the 2min sped up version.
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Love your honesty and willingness to let others learn from what you did. Well done and the best of luck to you! 
Looks like Michael Bush’s method of turning the box upside down would have been indicated. After cutting around the walls of the box first to loosen the frames. That way one could retrieve whole comb pieces, after first finding the queen. A good bee suit is essential, worth the cost.
Let us know how it turns out in spring. Had a few laughs throughout your video. Thanks.
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Will do. Looking forward to it myself.
All going well I have another Flow Hive to put together and might try a split towards the end of next spring.
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Oh dear… I can see you were having fun there (NOT)… there is still time to fix it up… Winter is still a couple of months away and bees are remarkably quick to repair the damage comb after you strap them into new frames with elastic bands.
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Hi Suses,
Don’t worry … I’m up on the roof once a weeks to sweep leaves out of my gutters n often up on a taller ladder working on my weather station monitors n controls up there.
I’ve been lucky to still be very balanced n steady on my feet at most 72 yrs. When I start feeling off-balanced I will quickly retire from my fleat of foot roof top workings. I have to stay healthy n not broken to care for my wife.
Cheers n take care !
Gerald