Always try to get a jump on culling old comb in the brood chamber this time of year before my bees occupy both deeps and there are loads of swarm cells. My bees usually overwinter with 2 8f deeps. Since the buggers want to draw wax in the spring , I set strong hives up to be a deep frame factories so I can refresh their brood chambers the next year with good clean drawn comb. Per the steps, 1. Scrape down burr and invert boxes 2. Cull old frames in the upper box (was the lower). 3. Shift frames to so fresh clean comb is centered above brood zone 4. Super with checkerboarded deep that has half drawn comb and half waxed foundation. Write year on foundation top bar so it can be tracked for future maintenance. I then render down wax from the old culled comb and use it to wax new foundation. The timing for doing this maintenance is about always the same time S. discolor blooms. #bee season cycles #bees #honeycomb #springmaintenance #beebloompgh2018 #overwinteringbees (at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
