Broken Comb β€” Help

Hello! New beekeeper here. I just did an inspection on my nuc that I installed a little over a week ago. The bees had burr comb on the inner cover which made it difficult for me to open the hive, and resulted in one of newer pieces of comb on the end frame to break off. The comb was approximately the size of my hand. I was able to reach down and grab it but it was pretty smushed. I was searching for eggs and/or the queen and could not find her anywhere, but plenty of larvae and capped brood. After closing up the hive, I took a second look at the piece that had broken off and there were eggs! I am so upset about the piece that broke off, as I was not able to reattach. Do you think it is a big loss or will it be okay? Like I said it was about the size of my hand and was attached to the last frame which had another piece much bigger.

1 Like

That new comb is fragile! They will recover fine, queen lays thousands of eggs per day.

If the piece were larger you could try to hold in a frame with some #33 size rubber bands but for a small piece it probably isn’t worth the effort.

I think someone made the suggestion once to put broken comb propped up above the inner cover (and make sure the bees have access) and then remove after the bees have emerged.

3 Likes

Thank you for the advice! I was really just hoping to get some reassurance that all would be well lol. I will definitely have to get some rubber bands for the future though!

1 Like

Welcome Michaela! Same thing happened to me on my very first inspection, an awful feeling :pleading_face: Are you using foundationless deep frames? I was too, and still do - but I modify them with bamboo skewers attached vertically to give a bit more structure for those first β€˜hands’ of comb to be built on. Others would advise foundation, for the same reason.

1 Like

I use 5 frames foundation and 3 foundationless for the brood box and the outer frames are the foundationless.