Touring Colony 1: Drone Comb
This is a piece of "drone" comb, the bashed up honeycomb
produced and filled with male larvae by the unhappy laying
workers (bashing courtesy of the beekeeper). The bees will
reuse it, and it is a good idea to provide them with as much
comb as possible as we go into the main nectar flow (it's
already late this year). But they have to clean it first,
and they seem to be busy doing so here. It's hard work for
bees, and that may be one of the reasons — along with
the internal availability of sugar water in the feeder —
that these bees still do not appear as frequently outside
the hive as their neighbors. There were no eggs or larvae
on this frame, though the paler, less yellow wax is evidence
of repair work.
