Comb Question

[pollenpants]

I?m a new beekeeper this year. Over the winter I bought a hive setup from one of my wife?s coworkers that was less than 5 years old. When I was getting ready in early spring before my nucs came in I noticed some of his comb looked like the photo attached. I didn?t use any of this comb, there are about 8 frames like this. Is this where pollen or brood had been stored? Is it ok to use? I was planning on knocking out the foundation and trying some of the frames as foundationless and replacing the rest of the foundation.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[iddee]

The dark comb is where brood was raised, and is reusable. The plastic areas that were not drawn out will never be drawn out. It would be best to scrape all the plastic comb down and pressure wash at a car wash or similar. Then melt some bees wax and paint the plastic with wax. Then the bees will redraw it. The bees will not draw comb on plastic. It has to be covered with wax before they will use it.

[pollenpants]

The dark comb is where brood was raised, and is reusable. The plastic areas that were not drawn out will never be drawn out. It would be best to scrape all the plastic comb down and pressure wash at a car wash or similar. Then melt some bees wax and paint the plastic with wax. Then the bees will redraw it. The bees will not draw comb on plastic. It has to be covered with wax before they will use it.

That?s what I thought, thank you for confirming. There used to be comb covering the whole frame but I broke some wax off in transport.

Can I scrape and collect excess wax that my bees build on the bottom/top of frames and melt that down to repaint the frames?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BeeMaster2]

Welcome to Beemaster.
You can also melt some bees wax and use a disposable paint brush and paint the wax on the bare areas. I do this when I have a frame like yours.
Jim Altmiller

[iddee]

Yes, you can do anyway that gives them a wax base to build on. They won't build on a plastic base.

[Michael Bush]

It's cocoons.  Any comb that has had brood in it will look like that.  At least until it gets even darker...