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Freaking over Foulbrood

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foulbrood
2K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  ositolud 
#1 ·
I am new beekeeper this year. My bees have been hived a little less than a month. When I performed my weekly inspection today I got a little freaked out. The color of the brood comb has changed dramatically (I can assume from only one generation of brood so far) and the wax on the caps of the capped brood has seemed to turn quite dark on the inside. There was no dead larvae that I could see and no significant odor other than the strange perfume that I have quickly come to associate with a beehive. Can the color of the brood comb change that quickly from leftover feces and cocoon? Am I jumping at shadows right now?

I am going to go back out tomorrow to see if I can locate any dead brood and perform the string test.
 
#4 ·
Yup. I have some brood comb that is only a couple years old and is almost black already.

If your worried pick open some of the cells with a exacto knife or similar and take a look at the brood. If they are healthy looking white grubs all is well, you only have to worry if they have turned into dark colored slime or are otherwise diseased.
 
#5 ·
If you are talking about the color of the cappings of the brood you are probably seeing what I have read here on beesource as "chocolate brood", that is an indicator that the brood is close to emerging. When the brood is first capped it is a light tan color. https://kelleybees.com/blog/
A corroboratory link is attached. Look at Cleo Hogan's post about splits on April 30th - point #2 at the bottom. "Take her and a couple of frames of chocolate colored brood, (this brood will hatch quickly, building the split rapidly.) The brood cap darkens with age; chocolate-colored brood is closer to hatching than freshly capped brood."
Ositolud, there is lots to see in a beehive, excellent observation skills to notice the difference. Drop a photo in this thread, and I would bet other beekeepers will tell you it looks normal.
 
#7 ·
Thank you everyone for your advice. I took a breath, calmed down, and went back out to further scrutinize. As painful for me as it was, I even scraped some caps from a few cells that looked like they had turned dark. It is now a big negative for foulbrood.
I am amazed at how attached I have become to these little insects. I was terrified for a minute that I was going to start losing them!
 
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