SPEAKER: Hi there. I'd like to talk to you
today about managing comb. The comb that bees build is
a very valuable resource. So, we want to do our very best
to take good care of that comb. We separate a comb into two
types, honeycomb and brood comb. And I'll go through some of
the reasons for that as we go along. We're gonna open up a hive and have
a look at what those two look like. So, we'll just separate the brood
chamber and the honey super. One thing that we do to
re-ensure that we actually keep the brood comb separate
from our honeycomb is, we use medium depth box for our honey in a deep box for our brood chamber. So, those frames aren't interchangeable. And that way, we're able
to manage them separately. So, we'll just take the hive apart here. This box is about three quarters full. It's a split we made up this year. So, we'll start by looking
at the honeycomb. It's the frame that has
fresh nectar in it, but they it's not completely full. And you can see that
it's a nice light color. When bees produce beeswax, it comes out of their
body and it's pure white. They get stained with the yellow
color through pollen being tracked over the comb
and gets that yellow color. Brood comb gets quite black. And I'll explain that as we get
down to the brood chamber. There we can see a nice full
frame of honey with cappings, sealing up that honey there. When we harvest this honey, we uncap
the frames and spin the honey out. And that way, we're able to reuse
this comb year after year, bees don't have to build it every year. It stays in nice light color because
there's never any brood in there. And it stores better because there's
never been any brood in there. We use a queen excluder to keep
the queen from getting up in there. That's what prevents
the queen from being (UNKNOWN) in the top part of the box of the hive. But there's also no pollen
stored up in there. So, these frames store well, they're
less attractive to rodents and to wax moths when it's light colored
comb and there's no pollen present. So, it's really a big advantage
to keep that separate. The honey also on uncaps much more
readily if it's nice light comb, because pupa cases are
quite tough and they make it hard to be able to uncap the comb. So, let's look inside
that brood chamber now. And this is one. This (UNKNOWN) was an earlier split. And what we've done is, we've
reused some older frames with older dark comb and then we put some
new frames in here as well. So, let's start off by
looking at the new frame. Every time we make up a new split, we give them several frames of foundation. And that's a way of working in
comb, so that we can be replacing comb over time by adding
the new frames into splits. And you can see they're just getting
started on that side of the frame. So, I'm going to turn this
around to expose that undrawn frame closer to the brood
where they'll fill it up. Now, if we look at an older frame in here, we'll see that the wax
gets very dark overtime. So, it's actually almost black. We look in here, and that's
because every time a bee pupates, you can see pupa right here. They spin a cocoon
and that cocoon is quite dark. When they emerge, they
leave the cocoon behind. And over time, you build up one layer on top of another layer of the pupa cases. So, the cone gets quite
tough and quite dark. And you can see this is just
a beautiful frame of brood there. The comb is in really good shape. It's nice and flat, which is desirable. So, one thing that we do
periodically is remove combs that are broken
or damaged in one way or another or formed
improperly so that they're not flat and they don't sit parallel. But what we do, it's tough
to cull comb when it's got brood in it or when
it's got honey in it. So, what will we do instead
is, wherever (UNKNOWN) dies, that's our opportunity to cull
a bunch of comb out of the comb. If you use to brood chambers
in the early spring, the bees are all up in the top box. The bottom box has very little in it. So that's the time where you could cull some frames out of the bottom box. But it said that you should replace the comb once every five or six years. Well, we do that, but in
multiple different ways. One, by adding a new frames into
splits that we make, and two, by culling comb in colonies that
have died over the winter time. So, that dark comb does not store well. And so, if you're storing any brood comb, it's important you keep it nice and cool. Wax moth develop at temperatures
above 15 degrees C. So, any stored brood comb needs to
be kept cool, preferably frozen. The ideal way to store comb,
either honeycomb or brood comb in the wintertime is in
an unheated shed, where it freezes. 24 hours of freezing will
kill all stages of wax moth. And so, just storing it in a cold location over the winter is the best option. So, if you do get wax moth
like say (UNKNOWN) dies, you get some wax moth into a (UNKNOWN). If it's not really bad, you have the opportunity to put it on a (UNKNOWN) to let the bees clean it up
and take care of that wax moth. Or freeze it and store it in
a cool location after that. But the best thing is to
have all your brood comb with bees on it so that
it's not prone to damage. And quite often I ask why not
just leave a box of honey on top of the (UNKNOWN) for
the bees to winter on? There's a number of reasons
why that can be problematic. So, let's have a look down here. You can see there's a brood
chamber, a queen excluder, and then honey super there. So, if we leave this honey super on for the bees to feed on over the winter, the queen is going to be down here and all the bees are going to be up here. So you can see why that
might be a problem. So, if we take the queen excluder
out and leave that super there, the queen could move up with them. But that's exactly what she does. So, she moves up into here. And in the spring, there's eggs
and larva and pupa in your honey super. So, it's no longer a honey super. The combs get dark. You have to find
the queen, put her down below, exclude her to fix that problem. So it's generally better to
just take the honey supers off, feed the (UNKNOWN) when it
shifts to brood chamber, so they can pack all the food
right where they need it, at the time of year that
they need that food. So, that's what almost all
beekeepers do, is harvest the honey. (UNKNOWN) down at the brood chamber, and then feed them to get
them ready for winter. By keeping that brood comb separate
from the honeycomb, it lasts longer. It's more efficient for
when we're extracting. We definitely leave any honey that's
in the brood chamber for the bees. And that can be kind of important, too, because if there is pesticides like
a miticide in there or antibiotic. We're not concerned with that getting
into the honey 'cause it's honey in the brood chamber that we're
going to leave for the bees. So, those are the methods we
use for managing our comb. Thanks for watching. See you next time.
