Bees dying, neighborhood ignorance, steam coming from my ears

[luvin honey]

The bees appear to be doing fine. I don't know what happened, but it appears to have been a limited issue. I went through all 3 hives Sat, and they're doing great, lots of eggs and brood. Thanks for all the responses!

[BrentX]

I was hoping this would be the case.

At a recent state bee meeting some recent research on herbicide accumulation in comb was presented for bees used in commercial pollination.  The take away is it is a really good idea to purge old comb from the hive. 

[luvin honey]

So would that mean me sacrificing brood to ditch the old comb? The first time I was able to get into the hive they were already filling things up with nectar, pollen and honey.

These are treatment-free hives with a lot of "organic" forage. Would I have more time before needing to throw out old combs? Thanks :)

[FRAMEshift]

So would that mean me sacrificing brood to ditch the old comb? The first time I was able to get into the hive they were already filling things up with nectar, pollen and honey.

These are treatment-free hives with a lot of "organic" forage. Would I have more time before needing to throw out old combs? Thanks :)

I have not seen the presentations from the Delaware state meeting, but I think what they mean is that comb should be rotated out of the hive earlier than what you might otherwise do.  That would not mean sacrificing brood, but just removing empty comb after two or three years instead of every four or five years.  And of course if you have a low pesticide/herbicide environment, that is something you could also take into consideration as far as when to cut out old comb.