As you work through the brood frames you should notice that there is
a pattern to what the bees use the frames for.
The first frame, closest to the entrance, is usually used for honey storage.
The second and third frames for a mixture of honey and pollen. The next
frames begin to also have brood on them, whilst the frames in the middle
are used almost exclusively for rearing brood. This is most obvious when
you have a full colony using as many as 15 frames. The first and last
frames will be almost exclusively used for honey and noticeably heavier
than the more central 8 or 9 frames used by the queen for laying eggs
and rearing brood.
The diagram below shows what the colony would look like if you had a
pairofX-Rayspecsduringthespringandsummer.Theratioofbroodto
honey stored in the frames varies greatly with the time of year. In winter
there will be mostly honey.
Larvae Sealed brood Nectar Pollen Queen bee
Egg Drone brood Capped honey Empty cell
Perfect Brood - This frame shows
a perfect circle of brood. The queen
is laying very well. There are only
a few empty cells. It is thought the
bees leave these empty cells so that
a bee can climb in and warm the
surrounding brood by raising it’s
own body temperature. A bit like a
chicken sitting on an egg to hatch it.
Brood with honey around the
edge
- This frame shows only a small
area of brood with loads of capped
honey around the edge of the brood.
Notice how dark the comb is, this is
because the wax is older and has been
used several times for rearing brood.
By the end of the season all the frames
are darker than at the beginning.
A brood frame with mostly honey
This frame comes from the front of
the Beehaus and contains mostly
honey and some pollen.
Cross section of the colony
A cross section of ten frames showing how the colony arranges it’s home
Example frames
The frames at the front and back are used for honey and pollen, the brood
(shaded) is concentrated towards the middle.
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