Cleaning out dead drone brood from Laying worker frames

[rwestoll]

Has anyone got any tips as to how to clean out frames of drone brood and eggs from what I think was Laying Worker frames rather than a drone laying queen? I had a hive which I threw out onto the ground a hundred yards away and let the workers fly back to next door hive. The only problem is that there are 7 frames which have varying amounts of small drone brood and eggs (quite a lot of multiple eggs in each cell). There was no room for the frames in any hive and better not to introduce such a varroa trap into another hive.

It could be quite time consuming with tweezers and messy with an uncapping fork. However it would be nice to have the frames of spare comb for future use and there are also quite a lot of stores on some frames. How long have I got before the brood goes manky in the cells?

Richard

 

[Midland Beek]

As far as I know, those frames cannot be re-used as the bees cannot re-engineer the comb to normal worker size. Re-use them and the queen will mostly lay unfertilized eggs, so getting lots of stunted drones.

 

[mbc]

As far as I know, those frames cannot be re-used as the bees cannot re-engineer the comb to normal worker size. Re-use them and the queen will mostly lay unfertilized eggs, so getting lots of stunted drones.

Tosh, give the frame to a good colony and theyll have it right in no time

 

[chickendave]

Tosh, give the frame to a good colony and theyll have it right in no time

Did that a few weeks back all cleaned up and know layed up with worker brood, I did however trim the comb back that they had started to extend for the drone brood that had been layed in worker comb

 

[rwestoll]

Midland Beek - The drone brood is very small, not like normal drone brood. Also very spread out around the comb. Looks as if the laying workers lay the eggs in worker cells and thay are capped off small. Real drone brood is much more bulbous. Where there is a larva, there is no effort to extend the width of the cell walls. I would send a piccie but seems I can only do this on a new thread? But I'll try all the same:

View attachment 4640

mbc- problem is that I took the frames off four days ago, before I had to go away for a couple of days. Can I put old dead brood into a hive- I suspect not.

Chickendave - So you cut out the affected sections of comb and allow bees to fill in the gap?

 

[rwestoll]

Wow, the piccie worked !

 

[Hombre]

As MBC said, just give the frames to a strong colony and perhaps use a drone fork to remove some of the drone brood to get an idea of varroa levels. Scratching the cappings will encourage the bees to clean them up without too much delay.

I had an out apiary that I thought was producing poor matings last year. This year I found out that my thoughts were oh so correct and wiped out my early season gains.