A beekeeper explains when to replace brood frames using a three-year rotation: retire one-third each year. Dark frames, mold, and wax moth damage signal replacement. Shallow frames in supers never get brood and can last indefinitely, but dark brood frames reduce colony efficiency and invite disease.
So I'm here going through all of the frames that I've condemned throughout the season. Some of them are in a really bad state. I've got to cut out all the wax, clean the frames, melt it all down, restore each and every one of those frames. But you know what? Some of them don't actually need melting down at all. In this video, I'm going to give you the breakdown, show you which ones you have to melt down, show you which ones you can probably get away with 1 or 2 more years of use. So first up, there's some non-negotiables here. The way that I run my apiaries, if I have a colony that fails for any reason whatsoever, I quarantine the entire box and I melt everything down. So I might have some frames in here like that that are covered in mold and disgusting and really dark, and then I might also have some really nice light frames like this. And normally I would look at that and say, that is perfectly good, we are keeping that. But if it's in the same box as something like this, it's much, much easier just to turn the beehive floor over, seal everything in, go and put it somewhere where it's quarantined, and And then in the winter or early spring, go through all of those boxes when the bees are not flying and clear everything out. That is what I'm doing today. Everything you see here is gonna be melted down. I'll reclaim the wax, I'll wash out all of the frames, clean them, sterilize them, get foundation back in, get them into sterilized boxes, and they are good again to go. So let's take a look at this frame here first. I would say it's in relatively good condition in terms of the wax. There's no wax moth or anything. There's no mouse damage. So structurally it looks good. But the color of it is too dark for my liking. This is probably the average color that I would get them to across the whole of the frame like that before I recycle them out. Now, I'm not there judging color the whole time. I have a rule. I leave them in for 3 years, and after 3 years, I take out 1/3 of the box and I recycle them every single year. That means all of my frames are on a 3-year replacement cycle. So even if they get to a position after 3 years where they look like this, which they definitely won't do, but if they get to that condition, I go out and I replace them anyway. But this one here, the color's not good, there's pollen inside, the pollen's gone moldy. For me, that's just a really easy one to say, I'm gonna chop all of that out and start again. So once you've decided that the frame is gonna be melted down, you just gotta chop all of the wax out, scrape it down, get it out of all of the grooves, and then I'm doing the full process in another video, so if you're interested in learning how we actually recycle these frames, definitely hit the subscribe button. So we'll park that one that's going through the rendering process. Let me give you a look at one that's probably just about borderline. If you've got frames that are looking like this, you see we've still got a little bit of blonde wax around the edge. To me, that's an indicator that it's not 3 years old yet, although it could be. Structurally though, it looks like a very good frame. It doesn't look that dark. It's come from a box that, okay, it is contaminated, so I'm going to render this one down anyway. But if this came from a box that was absolutely fine, maybe the bees have just gone up and drawn it out and then gone back down again, you can reuse a frame like this even with The small amount of wax moth damage you've got there, the small amount of mold, the small amount of pollen that's going moldy as well, and some of this broken wax. The bees will clean this up, no problem. But this is probably about the worst that I would use. If you're seeing more mold than that, if you're seeing more wax moth than that, if you're seeing darker frames than that, I would instantly look at recycling them out and getting new frames in and getting yourself into that 3-year system. Now, obviously, all of these frames that you're seeing here, these are brood frames. These are frames that you need to replace every single 3-year cycle. But if you've got shallow frames like this, frames that have drawn out up in the super and they've always remained above a queen excluder, that means the queen has never laid any eggs in there. That means you're not gonna get the darkness, you're not gonna get the cocoons, and that means that the wax will last indefinitely. You never ever need to replace it as long as the queen never lays upstairs. So drawn comb like this, beautiful golden comb. If you see this in the brood box, that is 1-year cycle, definitely no more than that. And if you started to see brood being laid in it, even after 1 year, you start to see a ring of browner wax where the cocoons are forming inside the wax. As that progresses, it gets darker and darker and darker down in the brood frames. But if you're seeing wax anything like this in your brood frames, then you do not need to do anything at all. So this one here is good. This one here is the absolute worst that I would probably continue to use for one more season. And this one here is quite clearly way too far gone. Any huge amount of mold or moldy bee bread or wax moth, Believe me, it is much, much easier just to chuck all of this away. Don't even bother saving the wax because there's hardly any inside a frame like this. And just go ahead and clean them, sterilize them, and get them back on with frames of foundation inside. You'd be amazed how many people ask that question, and you'd be amazed how many people get that wrong, me included. I see way too many people using very old, black, dark frames, way, way darker than that there, and they continue to use them year after year. And what you'll find is over time, your brood box will start to slow down. It loses the efficiency. Viruses come in. in and they take hold and your colony starts to dwindle away. Proactive management, proactive replacement of those frames will keep the bees in a healthy condition and keep that brood box working exactly as it needs to. So if you want to see how to convert old manky frames like that into brand new, perfectly restored and sterile frames like this, check out the video up there where I go through the full process.
