Everything about honeybees is interesting to me. I have seen this brood layout in several hives and I think it is interesting that bees make this sunrise-shaped brood pattern. So, what you are seeing here is capped brood in the center of the frame with some open cells – some were cleaned out, some had larva in them. Outside that center brood pattern is capped and uncapped honey.
I’ve been wondering why the bees tend to lay out their brood like this – certainly it is convenient to have stores near the brood. It is also interesting that they don’t mix brood and stores together, right? But I guess that just makes sense because otherwise the queen would need to work around the stores to find the cells where she can lay her eggs. Hives seem to be very orderly places where bees have their tasks to do, cells are neatly arranged and activities appear to be carried out automatically. Certainly there are a bucket of mysteries that still remain about honeybees despite the fact that they are the second most studied creature after humans.
Enjoy,
Matt
Read all of Matt’s Inside the Hive Posts here
Matt (twitter @MattInTheGarden) loves berries of all sorts though he’s not a fan of cherries. Weird, huh? He is neither tone deaf nor color blind but can’t carry a tune and is particularly unskilled at matching clothes. Matt loves to listen to Radio Lab and is quite jealous of Jad and Robert. They’ve got an awesome job.
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