Quote:
Originally Posted by ghak99
Dumb question, but what do you do with a single hive that large when you find one? How large of alive can one queen support?
I found a tree a storm blew out that had one of the largest hives I'd ever seen with multiple entrances. Everything was gone, but I counted endless layers of comb stretching through multiple hollow branches that all joined together in a main trunk I could almost crawl in.
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I realized I didn't answer your question.
I'm sure everyone who does hive removal does it a little differently. In a hive that large, there would be old comb, empty comb, new comb, comb with brood(capped larvae as seen in my post above) and drone comb(capped larger pods with drone-males that are pretty useless).
When I get into a give with a large volume, I would start by cutting out the old and empty comb. I put it into a tub, and will set it out for my bees to clean up. Sometimes I feed it to my chickens, but this time I'm going to start melting some down for wax.
If there is quality, capped honey I would cut that and put it aside to either use or sell as comb honey. Some of it I would cut to fit in a frame and use rubber bands to hold it in to place in the new box I'm moving the bees into for starter food.
What you're really looking for are the comb with the capped brood and young larvae. You'll cut those to fit into frames to place into the new box. That's the real value of a cutout in addition to the bees, because there are already babies ready to keep the hive growing. This is in pic 3 of 5 a couple of posts above.
In short, even in a physically large hive, unless it is late in the summer and contains a lot of honey, there is a lot of throw-away comb or old comb that can be melted down for wax.