Interpreting Winter Debris

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The Poot

Queen Bee
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Location
Dorset
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
Five
I have added photos of three of my inspection trays following a week in the hives.
This was to check varroa fall - the results are really good.

But I thought to ask you old sages out there, to interpret what the debris tells us as a help aid for beginners, who might be in their first Winter.
(It’s also something to do in lockdown house arrest!)

Fo info:
H1 is cedar brood, poly super above.
H2 is cedar brood and super above, but with PIR shroud.
The Abelo tray is from a poly brood with nadired cedar super.

All have poly roofs and 50mm celotex insulation above crown boards.
Thanks.
 

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It tells us where the cluster is and the rough size of the colony. The darker debris from brood cappings would indicate there is brood in the hives, less evidence of this in hive one. No idea how the colonies compared in size going into Winter but the abelo one looks smaller and appears to be more tightly clustered.
I see what is possibly wax moth poo on the middle tray but it could be earwig.
 
It tells us where the cluster is and the rough size of the colony. The darker debris from brood cappings would indicate there is brood in the hives, less evidence of this in hive one. No idea how the colonies compared in size going into Winter but the abelo one looks smaller and appears to be more tightly clustered.
I see what is possibly wax moth poo on the middle tray but it could be earwig.
Hi Steve, thanks for the reply.
The Abelo one: Was an early split using queen cells - cells failed to emerge.
As the colony dwindled I provided another QC which resulted in a very small queen, which only just managed to keep the colony going until superseded in September, by a queen that quickly got up to speed and the colony recovered to a decent size. It has consumed LOTS of fondant.

Hive 1 also had a late supercedure, this time of an older queen. The colony was pretty robust through the season, but not as vigorous as I had expected of it.

All of my hives are infested with earwigs!
 
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