Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[Adam Rose]

You can see some spectacular perpendicular combing in these pictures : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9pbojonnr78xmis/AAD2a30O3vLVth12HiSJzHEma?dl=0 !

This is a relatively small swarm that was put into an 8 bar space in a normal sized hive. The bees decided to build comb starting on the follower board, working at 90 degrees to the comb guides ! In retrospect, it would probably have been better to use a much smaller space, say 5 or 6 bars, but of course the bees may have decided to build perpendicularly anyway.

The combs have only extended across five bars. So after some discussion we decided to remove the unused three bars, replace the current follower with a follower that has a hole in it, and use some spare comb from the other end of the hive on the other side of that follower to encourage them to build new comb "correctly". There is a follower without a hole on the far side of that. This will result in five bars of semi-permanent perpendicular combs but we're hoping that the rest will be along the combs.

The beekeepers may drill more than one hole in the internal follower, or may replace it completely with a 1/2 or 2/3 length follower.

We should be able to update with progress towards the end of the year, or perhaps next spring, depending on how quickly the colony expands.

The other hive in the apiary is much better behaved ! Again a small colony, but all the combs are beautifully straight. We did a quick inspection and I managed to spot the queen, which is pretty rare event for me. She was fat and quite orange coloured.

Adam.