Saving brood frames that have merged?

Flow Hive
1

I am quite new to bee keeping and have just started a colony in the brood box of my flow frame. Due to handling/transport, etc, 2 of the frames have been worked by the bees (slumping of comb) such that if I try to separate them (for my convenience) I’m going to ruin a lot of their work. As the colony is still small, I don’t want to set them back. It’s not difficult to work the 2 frames as 1 for the time being.

Does it make sense to let them continue to fill the frames and then when it appears that the it’s fairly full of brood, transfer the 2 frames into the Super (with queen excluder in), let them hatch and then clean up the frames for later use?

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

2

Hi Ed, what you’re proposing is standard practice, I think, when all the frames are kept the same, as in full depth. The only thing I would add would be to use properly fitted wax foundation in the frames next time. Also when putting the brood filled frames above a QE, ether break the drone brood out first, or allow enough space in the roof for them to escape, otherwise they’ll get stuck & die trying to get through the QE.

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Hi Jeff! Thanks for the informative and quick response. Good to know that I wasn’t too far off base…but I wouldn’t have thought about the QE being a DE as well !! I really appreciate the advice!!

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