Why is the wax on the queen excluder dark brown?

i thought beeswax was yellow. Is darker wax indicative of something specific?

Is it wax or propolis?

Dark wax is from mainly pupal cocoons and shellac and foot traffic, so dark isn’t unusual, if it is wax.

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I agree with @chau06 . Sometimes you’ll get some wax & some propolis. I’m not sure, but now I’m starting to wonder if the bees mix the two together at times. This is because I’ve been collecting propolis from the tops of honey frames for a customer. I scrape the dark colored propolis off, leaving the light colored wax behind. While doing so, I’m observing medium colored wax in the form of comb on the frames, which makes me wonder if it’s a mixture of both.

A good way to tell between propolis & wax is propolis is much softer & sticky. At least fresh propolis is. It gets quite sticky & can be hard to remove from your fingers without soap & water.

Propolis aside, dark wax is basically what chau06 described.

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