# how often should brood frames be changed?



## buford (Feb 22, 2005)

what are the indications that they should be changed and what is the best way to do this?

my thought is that maybe the frames i want to remove should be moved to the sides (so the bees will fill it with honey) then pull it, let the bees rob it, then toss it.


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## Pete0 (Mar 30, 2002)

You have the idea. That's the way I do it, move the frames to the outside. If the comb is anything but straight and completely drawn out it is a candidate to be removed. If the comb is 3 years old (mark the date on the top bar when you assemble them or before putting them into the hive) then I will remove it. Only because this is something I read somewhere.
This spring I got 4 hives and a bunch of equipment that is set up for 9 frames.  Talk about some funky comb. The least bit of a warp in the foundation has translated into major waves in drawn comb. Plenty of honey on a frame but in order to replace a frame in a 9 frame system it has to be drawn out in a 10 frame hive or super. Live and learn!

Pete0


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I assume we are talking about changing out combs, not frames. I keep the frames until the mice or moths have chewed them to sawdust.









The people who change the combs out often use the "hand" method. You hold the comb up to the light with your hand behind it and if you can see your hand it's not too old yet. Some date the frames so they know which ones are the oldest.

If I used Checkmite or Apistan I would probably change them more often because it will accumulate in the wax.

Since I don't use Checkmite or Apistan, I've only replaced them when they were hoplessly torn up by wax moths or mice or they are large cell combs that I haven't replaced yet (regressing to natural sized cells).


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## buford (Feb 22, 2005)

yes, i'm talking about changing the comb.

what kind of problems can i run into if i don't change them semi-regularly?

all of my brood combs are pretty old, all large cell (especially the drone comb). all the newer combs i have still need to be drawn out.

most of the hives are nine frame, so introducing a new frame is a bit of a trick. i've tried it a couple times and they either don't touch it, or they draw it out really wierd.  

also, am i more likely to see foul brood in a large cell hive, or does it matter (small or large)?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>what kind of problems can i run into if i don't change them semi-regularly?

If you use poisons that build up in the wax you could have serious problems with early queen death, sterile drones etc.

If you DON'T then the theory is that AFB can build up. I only know I don't change mine out and I've never had AFB.

>most of the hives are nine frame, so introducing a new frame is a bit of a trick. i've tried it a couple times and they either don't touch it, or they draw it out really wierd. [Eek!]

Try to pick well drawn brood comb that is nice and flat on each side of the new frame. Don't put it between to wavy combs.

>also, am i more likely to see foul brood in a large cell hive, or does it matter (small or large)?

I have never seen it any of my hives with either. Some of the small cell people think small cell helps with AFB. I have no experience or observations on the matter to have an opinion.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

Regardless of your use of "poisons", not rotating
your brood comb can only be described as
questionable, perhaps "negligent" in the view of some.

If nothing else, the cells themselves become
lined with cocoons, which are good places for
molds and such to become established.

To each his own, but no brood comb lives for more
than 5 years around here. Super comb lives as
long as it is still useful, but we use queen
color thumbtacks to insure that we rotate
comb on a strict schedule.

...And what would Jesus drive?
His fist - right through the hood of your 
polluting two-ton approach to avoiding
healthy exercise.


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## Phoenix (May 26, 2004)

I have also found color coding the frames to be a no brainer, I label each new frame with an indicator decal corresponding to the color of the queen of that year, this year they are blue. Makes for a nice easy system to rotate out old comb. 

I started with the idea to just make decals for "Housel" indicators and then a customer requested specific color decals which started a discussion regarding the many uses for them, spawning the multi-purpose "Housel" decals of which I have even gone to the extent to cut numbers in the decals to indicate the type of foundation in that frame. For instance, I cut 4.9 in blue decals to tell myself at a glance of the top bar, that particular frame has small cell foundation installed in 05.


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## buford (Feb 22, 2005)

most of the new deep frames i have are one piece plastic frame and foundation (so the "hand" test won't work with these).

i assume that when these (plastic) combs get old, i can just scrape them off (maybe put a thin coat of hot wax on them), then re-introduce them?

at any rate, it sounds like i need to have the foundation drawn out before putting it in the brood area.. right?


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## buford (Feb 22, 2005)

jim,

what is your "strict schedule"?

you mentioned that 5 year is the limit, so does that mean you change them about every three?


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## Curry (Sep 22, 2003)

"i assume that when these (plastic) combs get old, i can just scrape them off"

Ya right, good luck...

When the brood comb gets old, it's very difficult to just scrape off of plastic. For some reason, it has an almost unbreakable bond to the plastic. But never fear- just put them in an empty box with a bottom and lid on it, and presto, the wax moths will clean the frames for you! It's much easier than trying to fight it... just let nature take its course. It might take a while for the moths to get around to doing their job, but it's worth the wait.

I like to change out my brood comb about every 5 years.

I scrape wax (and honey) off my supers, and after the wax gets completely drained of honey, I put it in a mixer, then paste it back on a new (or cleaned) frame and the bees draw it right back out. I call this the "CurryComb" method, since I believe I'm the only one that does this. And oh ya, this method only works during some sort of a honey flow.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Curry, I don't know how cold it gets in in your neck of the woods. We either scrape our comb off the the cold fall or winter which makes it much easier or we heat a drum of water and drop the plastic frames and foundation all in a once. You only need about 140 degrees to melt the wax(we run 150-160). Don't go much over or the plastic may warp.


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## buford (Feb 22, 2005)

curry,

so, wax moths will clean the plastic frames so they can be re-used?! 

WOW!! i didn't think wax moths were good for anything! am i hearing this right or am i getting it all wrong?


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

The only problem is that when your allowing wax moths to "clean" your equipment you also offering them a breeding ground for more wax moths.


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## Curry (Sep 22, 2003)

"so, wax moths will clean the plastic frames so they can be re-used?!"

Yep, you got it. I wouldn't do this with wood frames and plastic inserts, cause the moths would also eat up the wood frames, but it works great with ALL-plastic frames.

I currently have two hives dedicated to cleaning frames (4 deeps total). And, yes, I WANT more wax moths... to clean more frames. Wax moths can't hurt a normal hive- they only take control of hives that have already been weakened by queenlessness, etc.

I'll have to try Joels method of scrapping them in the cold... sounds good. It's just, in the past I've had some frames that had the cocoons just glued on- I would think it would have to be minus 40 to do any good.


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## Robert Hawkins (May 27, 2005)

I use wooden frames. Wax Moths are my enemy. And you're policy of using/helping/supporting them is offencsive to me

Hawk


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## buford (Feb 22, 2005)

curry,

i have one plastic hive body and a couple plastic nuc boxes (sometimes advertised as swarm catchers). i assume that they can't do damage to the plastic (like they can in a wooden box), right?

but, i also have two of those foam "beemax" hive bodies. my gut tells me that wax moths will do damage to them, is this also right?

one more thing. how long does it take them to clean and how hard is it to scrape off what they leave behind?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Wax Moths are my enemy. And you're policy of using/helping/supporting them is offencsive to me

It's hard for me not to think this way as well, but they seem to coexist quite nicely in trees. The debris on the bottom is always full of wax moths. They are the garbage collectors of the bee world. But they sure make it difficult to keep drawn comb around.


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## Curry (Sep 22, 2003)

buford- no, they can't do ANY damage to all-plastic frames. They will, however, eat a little into the walls of your wooden box, but won't really hurt it.

As for foam hives, I don't know cause I don't have one, but I would be shocked if they could dig into any type of plastic.

During the summer, wax moths can clean old comb off in a month or two. Just today I inserted some old comb in a wax moth hive, and also took out about four combs that had been cleaned for me. Sometimes the combs are spitshined so that you can just put them right in another box, and sometimes you have a layer of webbing that you just shake off like you would if there were bees on it. Comes right off!

And Robert, don't be afraid of wax moths... they're not your enemy because they can't hurt your hives. They can only get established in ALREADY weakened hives (failed queen, etc). The good lord gave us those wax moths so that nature can work for us, if we just let it.


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## Robert Hawkins (May 27, 2005)

Curry, that logic can also be used for out friendly varroa mite. They won't kill off a healthy hive. Just cleaning up nature's mistakes. I don't feel at all guilty about resenting anyone's helping wax moths.

Hawk


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## JohnBeeMan (Feb 24, 2004)

>>>Wax Moths are my enemy.

But they make great fish bait - The larva that is.

However, when I find a heavy infestation, I find them so offensive that I burm them. Luckily I have not had this problem in several years.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

>what is your "strict schedule"?

Five years. Its just that simple!









> you mentioned that 5 year is the limit, so does 
> that mean you change them about every three?

Nope, we swap them out at 5 years. There are
5 "queen colors", so on the 5th year, one is
removing drawn frames and replacing them with
foundation having the same color used 5 years
ago. Also, all newly-assembled frames are
tagging with that color.

So, this year's color is blue, so all the frames
that had blue thumbtacks were removed and
replaced with the recycled/reconditioned frames
that we have pulled last year, two per 10-frame super.

With an even distribution of frames, this means
that no comb stays in a brood chamber for more
than 5 years, as each 10-frame brood box contains
two frames marked with each color.

The comb-drawing "load" on the colonies is trivial,
as they still have 8 frames per super to work
with per box, and any colony can draw 20% of its
total brood chamber area out with ease. Those
young bees have nothing better to do than to make
wax flakes, ya know.

So here is a typical brood chamber:
(Colors are blue, white, yellow, red green for
years ending in 0/5, 1/6, 2/7, 3/8, 4/9, respectively).
Replaced fames are shown in Caps, but
the actual position of the frames within each
box varies. We never have two of the same color
together.

2000 - BB ww yy rr gg
2001 - bb WW yy rr gg
2002 - bb ww YY rr gg
2003 - bb ww yy RR gg
2004 - bb ww yy rr GG
2005 - BB ww yy rr gg

We tried pulling frames in fall, but it is much
easier to get the bees to quickly draw comb in spring.


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## buford (Feb 22, 2005)

thanks.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

Wax moths ate almost trough a rubber lined oxygen/acetylene torch hose of mine. They also ate slightly into the concrete floor if memory serves me. I wouldn't risk the foam. 
Bait?,..... I like it.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Of course this all only re-enforces the fact beekeepers will find a use for everthing until it could have no purpose left. Raise a pest to clean frames, then use them for bait. Most would call us cheap, I bet most of us would say frugal. I'm with Hawk, though and it's not about the healthy hives, it's about 600 stored honey supers, 50 or so stored deeps and trying to keep paradicholorbenzine on everything until they go on the hives. When they get done "cleaning" for you they munch on my stuff. Bait! what's wrong with night crawlers?


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## Robert Hawkins (May 27, 2005)

Thanks Joel, you and me buddy. But MB is right. (How many times have we said that?) It's just a pest that we put up with. I can live with that. But I won't nuture them. Even the folks w/ plastic frames use wooden hives. Eh?

Hawk


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## JDI (May 11, 2005)

It would seem to me that keeping comb over a long period of time would improve mite resistance as cell size decreased over time in the brood area. Is this not correct? I have been a beekeeper for 14 years and have never tossed out a good comb. I get rid of about 12-20 a year that were drawn crooked or that the bees put too much drone comb in. I have not had any AFB. I have had chalkbrood in two hives but only until I improved hive ventilation. May be I will not treat for varroa this fall and see if my colonies on older comb do better than the ones on new comb. I'll let you know.
James


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## Curry (Sep 22, 2003)

I believe that the cell size doesn't decrease because the nurse bees will chew out the cocoons from previous pupaes. The American Bee Journal has had some very good articles on foulbrood recently. In a nut shell, most hives have foulbrood spores in them- but there won't be an OUTBREAK of foulbrood until the spore count gets high enough in a brood cell. If a pupae injests enough spores, and becomes infected, it can produce tons of spores which it deficates into the hive as an adult.

Spores apparently accumulate over time, in every hive, so that is why it's best to cull brood comb after a while... how long that "while" is is anyones guess. I would think that every 5 years would be plenty safe though. But I have all-plastic frames, so it doesn't cost me anything to replace. I can see that if I had to shell out money, I would probably take my chances. But you are taking a risk, that possibly one hive becomes infected and spreads it to your neighboring hives.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

They do chew them out when they fall below the bees' threshold of brood comb size, but that will be about 4.6mm or smaller. If you start with 5.4mm that's a LOT of cocoons.


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## jalal (Sep 2, 2004)

yum.

What's the source on that?


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

Bad idea to " see what happens" with the brood comb. Treat when you need to or lose the bees. Monitor often and use the data. The bees change their brood comb by swarming and absconding. The wax is a natural sink, not only for disease, but for chemicals. That's it's job. There's a site in Denmark that talks about changing brood comb often I think every 3 years tops. 

Dickm


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>What's the source on that?

Dee has posted the references to the studies on the chewing out process and the thresholds, in the past. I don't have them handy.


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

When a queen dies and the hive goes 2 to 6 weeks without a hatching, Joel, Hawk and I requeen and continue on. Curry adds a frame cleaning hive to his collection. Is this what I am reading??
I keep bird feeders close to all my hives, thus eliminating all wax moths.


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