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British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Comb - old or new?

  • More advanced beekeeping discussion forum.
More advanced beekeeping discussion forum.
 #10919  by AdamD
 17 May 2021, 20:05
In the Journal of Apicultural research (JAR) the following was published in March this year. I don't have access to the full 'paper. However what is interesting is that the abstract would imply that new comb is better than old and that a 3 year cycle of comb replacement does make sense. Maybe I need to get rid of my "vintage" comb after all!

"Abstract
A study was carried out to investigate the influence of differently aged wax combs (foundation as zero, 1, 2, 3 and 4 − 6 years old) on some biological aspects that affect the productivity of honey bee colonies. Twenty-five package colonies were equally divided and situated on each of the tested combs during the spring of two successive years (2018 and 2019). The obtained results revealed that worker brood areas, worker population, worker life span, weights of newly emerged workers and drones, and honey yield significantly increased with fresh combs. However, drone brood areas increased with old combs, and wax combs age had no effect on worker survivorship. It could be concluded that the wax combs aged from zero (foundation) to three years old (light color combs) are more preferable in the performance and productivity of honey bee colonies than the older (dark color combs) ones"
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 #10921  by Steve 1972
 17 May 2021, 20:47
All i can add to that..is you know when comb needs replacing ... :D
 #10923  by MickBBKA
 17 May 2021, 23:58
But have you noticed how queens just love to lay in old comb ?
 #10935  by AdamD
 19 May 2021, 09:19
Yes; and they will sometimes avoid foundation given half a chance too!
 #10939  by NigelP
 19 May 2021, 14:11
Smaller bees from older comb and I have a paper somewhere that showed queens laid slightly better in new comb vs old. But differences were statistical and unlikely to have a major influence on ones beekeeping habits.
 #10951  by Alfred
 20 May 2021, 19:50
I have one colony that drws comb that is much darker than the others??
Its a sod to spot fresh eggs in.
 #10955  by Patrick
 21 May 2021, 01:26
I have always thought it interesting that the swarming mechanism of bees means that it is the parent and mainly young bees who depart, leaving the home territory and a considerable amount of its assets to her daughter. The swarm is necessarily established on new comb and leave behind the old.

In the great majority of plants and animals, it’s the progeny who have to depart to go to establish new territories, leaving the parent remaining in charge of its established home.