Can someone post pics of brood from egg to being capped

Blow this picture up, it shows most of the "phases" pretty well, except very freshly hatched larva which looks almost exactly like eggs but with a slight "curve".
Italian queen if that matters to you at all.

A picture of the "wave" of brood. Recently emerged cells top right (with new eggs) diagonally across the comb to bottom left where there are eggs/every young larva on newer comb.

A couple of pictures of what I consider pretty good pattern. The "empty" cells are generally filled with nectar. These are both from one of our Carniolan hives.
Drone brood on the left, worker from middle all the way to the right. Capped honey across the top with pollen under.

jwcarlson said:

Blow this picture up, it shows most of the "phases" pretty well, except very freshly hatched larva which looks almost exactly like eggs but with a slight "curve".
Italian queen if that matters to you at all.
View attachment 11378

A picture of the "wave" of brood. Recently emerged cells top right (with new eggs) diagonally across the comb to bottom left where there are eggs/every young larva on newer comb.
View attachment 11379

A couple of pictures of what I consider pretty good pattern. The "empty" cells are generally filled with nectar. These are both from one of our Carniolan hives.
Drone brood on the left, worker from middle all the way to the right. Capped honey across the top with pollen under.
View attachment 11380

Click to expand...

This is a great place to re-post this - I hope you don't mind, jw

(Taylor)25. How to preserve the integrity of the brood nest

The brood nest of a normal beehive has a definite and uniform pattern. The queen begins her egg laying more or less at the center of a comb, more or less at the center of the hive, and works out from there.Thus (as it progresses) one finds a pattern of sealed brood, surrounded by larvae, surrounded by smaller larvae and eggs. Eventually, as the larvae develop, the entire comb, or most of it, comes to consist of sealed brood.Then as brood at the center emerges, the queen again deposits the eggs there. Above and around this brood nest, one finds, first, pollen, then honey. The outermost combs in a hive contain only honey, sometimes pollen and rarely brood. The pollen is what is needed first, to feed the larvae, and then as winter approaches and brood rearing ceases (declines), the honey will be used; so both are appropriately placed."

Pic #1 is a great example of the bold print. Taylor's preface to the first edition - "...no point in devoting precious pages of pictures and print to things already set forth in books...in any library".

I rarely find reason to disagree with him, but there are always exceptions

I amended this widely posted graphic.


1. Eggs are always oblong sausage shaped (from day 1). Typical placement is at edge of cell wall to floor transition. The attachment is from the "tail" end of the eventual larvae.

2. The egg hatch coincides with a brief period where the egg arches into a horseshoe. The head end of the larvae touches the cell floor in a horseshoe, and the larvae tips over to form the characteristic "C" shape. The larvae color is nearly clear with faint banding. The egg husk is a yellowish cream, and is removed by the nurses. On screen bottoms the egg husks can be easily seen in the hive trash.

3. Cells are dry until the egg hatches, then the royal jelly pool is quickly added to the now-hatched larvae.

4. By Day 5, larvae have undergone the transition from translucent with narrow white banding to uniformly opaque white.