Do hives recycle old wax and can queen cells be made from recycled wax.

[Finman]

Bees leave a bit of wax, like a small swelling, at the entrance to the cell after the egg is laid. Later they use this for capping the cell. If there's not enough they take some wax from nearby to use. Perhaps they do the same to cap a queen cell? When damage is small or there are cracks in comb they usually repair it with propolis.

I have read (perhaps Seeley?) that in wild colonies in trees if unused comb is not stiff from coccoons it can be recycled the next year.
To join another thread, the same source says that ideally entrance holes are fairly near the bottom. About 20% of cavity height below the entrance.

When a bird make a nest hole into tree, entrance is always up. When there is poo in the floor of cavity, the wood rotten downwards.

How the ideal entrance of bees can be on the lower part of the cavity? Can the bees select ideal cavities in the nature?

 

[jool]

Bees rearrange cappings wax into some fantastic sculptures

 

[captain666]

Nice picture of 'brace' comb jool. Thanks for sharing.

Seems they just avoided some areas. May have been some damp spots when they started.

Fred.

 

[beeno]

I can see from color if combs are made from recycled wax. Sometimes I see light brown queen cells and sometimes white cells.

Sometimes bees tear down foundation and use wax somewhere else.

I agree

 

[Swn58]

I was under the impression that bees do not recycle wax. I thought that it was because when they originally produce it, due to freshness and temperature, it is more 'malleable?' The bees are able to shape it into the cone structures they require at that moment. After a while, as it ages, the wax becomes harder and brittle. As far as I can ascertain, bees do not have the physiology to 'recycle' old wax. Obviously, they can break it down, clear it away, but it is of no use to them for rebuilding.
I tend to think of it like a clay bowl. It is shaped from wet clay...fired to get hard and solid. If it gets cracked or broken, yes it could be recycled into another bowl. Unfortunately though, this would take a lot of work, with no guarantee that it would produce a bowl as good as the original. So best to use fresh clay?
On an observational note; there is always wax around my hives. The bees only go near it if it has honey on it. Also, I have never seen a bee carrying wax.

 

[Swn58]

I was under the impression that bees do not recycle wax. I thought that it was because when they originally produce it, due to freshness and temperature, it is more 'malleable?' The bees are able to shape it into the cone structures they require at that moment. After a while, as it ages, the wax becomes harder and brittle. As far as I can ascertain, bees do not have the physiology to 'recycle' old wax. Obviously, they can break it down, clear it away, but it is of no use to them for rebuilding.
I tend to think of it like a clay bowl. It is shaped from wet clay...fired to get hard and solid. If it gets cracked or broken, yes it could be recycled into another bowl. Unfortunately though, this would take a lot of work, with no guarantee that it would produce a bowl as good as the original. So best to use fresh clay?
On an observational note; there is always wax around my hives. The bees only go near it if it has honey on it. Also, I have never seen a bee carrying wax.

Well.....the vote says that I'm wrong. I'm surprised. Maybe what I thought was wax that is never touched by the bees, unless it has honey on it, is in fact Unicorn poo? Maybe the as yet undiscovered 'Wax-worker bee caste, operates in complete secret?

 

[captain666]

Swn 58. Numbers at the moment are not yet statistically significant.

Fred,

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

The only way that I have heard of to get the bees to recycle wax, is for the beekeeper to use melted cleaned beeswax and make it into thick foundation, thick enough for the bees to make the walls of the new cells entirely by pulling it out of the foundation instead of having to use up honey by making more wax using their wax glands.

 

[Finman]

The only way that I have heard of to get the bees to recycle wax, is for the beekeeper to use melted cleaned beeswax and make it into thick foundation, thick enough for the bees to make the walls of the new cells entirely

That is not possible. Bees draw half way walls when langstroth foudation is 100 g/sheet. And then they use 7 kg honey more to make 10 frames full drawn.

I have seen, how bees even use even blue styrofoam insulating board in cell buiding. Cells are widely blue beside the blue board.