Hi, I cleaned out my tray today (cleaned it 2-3 weeks ago) and it was full of what I assume are wax caps. I’ve never seen this before in this amount (only my 2nd yr as a BK hobbyist). Does this indicate they’ve relocated honey in the super or BB for some reason? Or is it something else I should be concerned about? Thx in advance!
Hi Craig, bees will move honey around, especially during springtime. They move/use honey out of brood frames while they expand the brood.
I really can’t make out definitively what’s in the tray. Can you do a brood inspection to see what’s going on in there? If there is any grubs in the tray, you could clean them up & take a closeup for us to view. As well as anything else that looks puzzling.
cheers
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Hi Jeff
Thanks for your quick reply! Unfortunately I can’t get to do one until next week and it’s also forecast to rain. But I’ll be doing one as soon as I can. The hive was very healthy and active a couple of weeks ago which is why this tray surprised me. I hadn’t thought of them needing to move honey from below, but it makes sense. Hopefully that’s what I’ll see. I already bagged and disposed the waste, so the image is all I have. I can only see 3 larvae/grubs in the entire tray- 1 is top right corner on its own. I’ll update this post when I get to do the inspection.
Thanks again for your feedback, it’s really appreciated
Cheers
I see that grub. It could be wax moth. That looks to be a wax moth in the top section, even though I’m used to them being grey in color.
There is a lot of obvious brood cappings from emerging bees, however I was wondering what those large bits were, now I’m thinking that it could be pollen. It’s a lot different to the granulated pollen that was present in the tray of @ClintSC9 a few weeks ago. I recently saw the same stuff as Clint on the roof of a hive that fell through a crack in a solid floor of a 10 frame strong nuc that was sitting on top. Clint is South of me in Carina, Brisbane.
I use all solid floors, so therefore I don’t normally see that kind of stuff. I think I prefer to use solid floors for at least one reason: The bees don’t lose all that good pollen they worked so hard to gather.
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Thanks again. I’ll update my situation when I can; hopefully with good news!
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