Well my romanticized view of opening the hive presented me with many difficulties. As you can see from the image, the queen cage was left in the hive too long and the bees have built comb in the gap. This means that (unless I move all the combs around) I will not be able to place the last top-bar in the hive without destroying the principle combs. Also, I wanted to be careful not to harm the queen and when I noticed that many of the bars were "glued" together and possibly running at a slight diagonal across the hive; I decided to let sleeping dogs lie; the bees are building up the hive incredibly well and I DO NOT WANT TO MESS IT UP. When the hive doubles in size, I plan on going back in do determine exactly how the combs have attached. This will allow the queen have more places to seek refuge.
Since there is the gap, there are numerous bees that hang out on top of the bars! Crud... and as a result I have to rest the lid on a small slab of wood - to harm as few bees as possible. Sadly, when I placed the lid on I heard the sad little crunch of bees... I will need to re-design the hive top on my next version of the hive.
Propolis on top-bar.
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