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Messy Brood Frames

1339 Views 2 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Sundance
Gosh, I'm full of questions these days!


My package bees have been drawing out the frames for their brood boxes (10 frame deeps).

The comb is pretty irregular, building off the face, etc. especially around where the queen's cage is. I pulled off as much burr comb/extra comb as was possible, but not all.

The most concerning thing is that this is on a variety of foundation, plasticell and duragilt mostly, and they are eating the wax off the edges to build in the middle. This leaves really smooth plastic in some cases that I doubt they will be able to draw.

Is there anything that can be done at this point? How do I fix this mess?

Thanks in advance, elizabeth
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I don't know that much about these types of foundation, the plasticell I think you can just scrape off and make them do it again. The duragilt, well, you'll just have to wait and see if any of it ends up being useable, if not clean the frames out and start over.
Duragilt won't be worked if it is down to the plastic. The bees will ignore it. I inherited some myself and toss it out when the plastic shows.

Package bees are going to need something no matter how ugly we think it is. Once established and the queen is laying you can cull out the bad frames. Least thats what I'd do...
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