A fine mess, or Someday I may know what I'm doing, part 2

Who knew that bees liked olive flowers?

A nice frame of brood in hive #2

A couple of days ago, I thought I'd try to take some honey from Olea's hive.  According to my new book on top-bar beekeeping, taking some honey during the honey flow is ok and the bees will just make more comb and honey.  It may even have the benefit of preventing swarming by giving the bees more room.  Well, as we all know, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
According Les Crowder's book, white, capped honey comb can be kept intact to be eaten while old comb should be cut off the bar and mashed to extract the honey.  Accordingly, I brought to the hive, a large pot (my beer brewing pot) for the old comb and a box to hold the new comb on the bar.  I was careful to bring a cover for both to keep the bees out.  I also brought empty bars to replace all the bars I removed.  Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht.
The last time I went into Olea's hive I suffered the deleterious effects of cross-combing, so this time I intended to be deliberate and avoid repeating that experience.  I carefully removed the end board and the last top-bar.  The comb wasn't completely straight, as you can see.  No problem so far.

Last top bar with comb inverted on top of hive

There are spacing shims between the top bars.  I figured if I removed these first, I would be able to see into the space between combs and cut any cross-combing; then I could remove the bar without any trouble.  Figure again!  After taking out the spacer, I could see some crossing.  I cut across it, spilling a little honey.  Ok so far.  Then I lifted the bar and bam!, the comb fell off spilling honey all over!  Back to the house for the tongs.  I had to remove the next couple of bars.  One had very little comb.  The next looked like it had capped honey, so I placed it in the box.  There were bees all over it, so the cover was superfluous.  I moved other bars around, making a bit more of a mess by cutting cross-combs.  I then fished out the broken comb and put it in the pot.  There were probably a couple of hundred bees stuck in all the honey.  There was quite a mess in the hive, as well.

Looking down into the top-bar hive after the broken comb was removed.  Those are bees on the bottom stuck in the honey

I then re-assembled the hive.  I had to brush all the bees off the piece of comb.  After I did, yikes!  It was a frame of brood with capped honey only at the top.  I re-opened the hive, took out an empty bar and replaced the frame I had taken out. Then I took the pot onto the deck and picked out the bees, putting the comb into a bowl.  There was a couple of ounces of honey, as well as bees and comb, in the bottom of the pot. Honey gained- one broken comb of ripe, uncapped honey. 

What's left  in the pot after the comb had been removed

Maidi suggested I should make videos of my beekeeping techniques entitled "How not to...".  It would probably be a best seller.