Hi guys,
I would really love some feed back on my brood box inspection. I took some pics (some not too great as I was a little nervous). I’m just worried about the dark colour of some cells and some look a little protruded, or mounded.
I live in NSW mid north coast and the nuc was only placed in the brood box in April/May this year.
Does everything look ok?
Any feedback would be appreciated. Cheers Christie
Hi Christie, I can’t see any brood at all, only honey. Your hive is also a bit lacking in bees. You may not have a queen in that hive. More clearer photos would be helpful, cheers
Did you take these frames from the outer edges? Try pulling the middle frames instead and make sure its a nice warm day, winter is here now and not the best time to be pulling the hive apart. Should be OK on a warm sunny day if only for a few minutes.
Is the capping on the last few frames dark because of honey beneath or is the wax dark?
Thanks heaps JeffH. I was worried the hive is not growing as quickly lately, thought it might be cause of winter. I had shaken off the frame prior to the photos. As you couldn’t see anything but bee’s. Time to call in a local expert I think, thanks again for your input.
cheers. cc
Hi Rodderick,
The busy frames are from the western side of the brood box, we face due north. the under active frames were on the eastern side. We were quick and it was sunny and warm. Thanks for your feed back, I’m worried about the hive and will get an old bee keeper I know to come out and check things with me. Main prob is not sure what I’m looking at.
Thanks for your help, cheers Cc
Hi Kirsten, it appears as though the honey or wax is dark, however the dark color mainly comes from a buildup of cocoons left behind after bees have hatched. Also wax will darken over time because of foot traffic over it. You’ll see that when I finally put my tree hive video up. The large dark area at the entrance of the hive after a lot of years of bees landing on it. I particularly got Wilma to focus the camera on that area.
Those photos are a bit fuzzy, but it looks as though those open cells only contain fresh unripe honey.
PS. At the top corners of those frames you’ll see how light in color it is. That’s because those areas have only been used by the bees to store honey. Therefore there is no cocoons left behind to darken the color of the wax. The honey in the dark area is more than likely the same color as the honey in the light colored areas.
Hi CC, your most welcome, good luck with that.