That’s a lot of traffic! And a lot of tiny bee feet covered in pollen and stuff. During this time, worker bees are coming and going hundreds of times a day to feed larvae. A brood cell is capped at the end of a period of about 9 or 10 days. The dark color of brood cells seems to be caused by the huge amount of activity that these cells endure. As the season progresses the dark-colored honeycomb expands as the amount of brood extends to the new brood frames. As the colony grows, beekeepers need to add extra brood boxes to provide more space. Honey bees do this so that they can cluster in a ball to keep the brood warm, especially during cold months when they form a winter cluster. This darkening actually corresponds to a roughly spherical brood nest shape in the center of the hive. But what should you do about it? Should you just leave it, or does it need to be removed? And what about harvesting dark capped honey and comb… Can you eat this? If you find dark beeswax in your hive, don’t worry, this is perfectly natural. Cells used only for storing honey remain light in color. The dark color is thought to be produced by the repeated use of these brood cells and the debris and propolis which builds up over time. So what makes honeycomb dark? Dark honeycomb is found where cells have been used for brood rearing. I remember when I first saw this I was quite puzzled… There can be a striking difference between light colored honeycomb and dark brood comb. With time they may be almost black in color. After a while, and certainly after your first season of beekeeping, you’ll see that some cells become dark. OK… So you’ve been inspecting your beehive frames for a while now, and you can’t help noticing that frames with brood cells look darker in places.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |