Reusing brood comb

[Silvbee]

Is it ever OK to give back brood comb to other hives that's been stored in the freezer?

It was from a hive that died over the winter (nothing suspicious) and has batches of frozen brood. I know the bees could clean it but is it OK to do?

[Neils]

The points I guess to consider is that freezing is not a good mechanism to sterilise frames. AFB, for example, certainly wont be affected so I'd be wary about reusing comb containing [dead] brood from a colony that died, accepting that can occur for numerous reasons, regardless of whether I thought it otherwise healthy.

I'd be much happier re-using empty combs or ones containing sealed stores that were snuck out of a hive than ones containing any brood. Having spare combs to hand is very useful at times, but I do wonder whether the risk, however slight, of giving colonies frames containing dead brood is worth taking?

[Silvbee]

This is what I was thinking as well. Drawn brood comb is so useful as you say but thinking on it logically I suppose its never healthy to put a bunch of dead animals in with other animals.

To the fire I think.

[Neils]

Keep the frame itself, I don't see any issue cleaning that up and re-using it, especially as you seem reasonably happy otherwise. Just cut out the comb and deal with that and keep the frame for another day.

[chris]

As "good" beekeeping practice reccommends to annually change a few brood frames so that there is a total renewal every 3 years, the most you can hope to gain is 2 years of comb. The worst is a hive with more problems than bees. As Nellie says, keep the frames. Having said all that, there are times when I've been badly organized, and used horrible black comb in another hive from that of its origin, and had no trouble. Some of the people can get lucky some of the time..............

[Adam]

I'm not comfortable with giving dead bees back. At the very least there's a lot of work to remove the decaying stuff and make ready for re-use. I suppose they're supposed to be nurse bees rather than mortuary attendants.

[Ruary]

Keep the frame itself, I don't see any issue cleaning that up and re-using it, especially as you seem reasonably happy otherwise. . So just in case the colony did actually die of foul brood, how would you clean the frames, by the time you've scraped, boiling in caustic soda rinsed and dried, you would be far better off spending your money on new fames as well as wax.

[Neils]

If I had any doubt whatsoever then I'd burn the frame.

Frames cost money, I buy a lot of them if I don't have to buy new frames every two years because I burned the old ones "just in case" then so much the better.

Colonies die for all sorts of reasons, in the original post he was satisfied that it wasn't disease that finished it off and I took that at face value.

[Ruary]

Well I have just finished examining a dead out in a neighbouring apiary. I found scale. He thought it had died from 'Queen Failure'. Several people are not capable of diagnosing AFB.
Clive de Bruyn has stated that he has found scales in some of the hives belonging to the most eminent beekeepers.

[Neils]

Don't disagree with that either. Most beekeepers know foul broods in the abstract, lots miss in it in practice for all sorts of reasons.

[mbc]

I'm happy that I dont have foulbrood, I specifically check all my colonies thoroughly in the Spring and am reasonably vigilant whenever I move brood combs throughout the season. If I have good comb in deadouts I have no fear in re using it. My favourite method of re using combs is to put whole boxes onto colonies needing room to expand in the Spring thus filling them with bees, reconditioning the combs and preserving them from wax moth attack.
I would reconsider this approach if I lived in an area with endemic EFB or if any of my neighbours had a history of either foulbrood but I'm sure the current obsession with renewing brood combs results in countless perfectly good combs being wasted throughout the land.

[Neils]

Not sure I agree with that assessment about renewing combs being an obsession :D

My understanding, and I'm happy to be corrected, is that we tend to it backwards, as beekeepers we prefer the queen to lay in old comb and keep the honey in nice clean combs where as leave the bees to it and they'll do it the other way round to keep the Queen laying in fresh comb where possible. Honey's antiseptic/antibiotic so from their point of view they don't have an issue with honey being in scabby old comb full of detritus.

[Bumble]

It makes sense for the next generation to be raised in clean, new, wax and I've always understood that, given the choice and enough space, feral colonies will build new brood comb and leave older comb empty or use it for their stores.

[Jon]

Feral colonies tend to start wax making at the top of the cavity and the combs get extended down as the brood nest grows and like you say the older comb at the top gets filled with stores. I think this is a principle of Warré beekeeping where space is always added below the brood nest rather than above. Our French correspondent Monsieur Chris will explain all when he passes by.