> Is not comb this NASTY COAL BLACK a candidate for replacement?  If I saw 
> this in one of my hives, I'd be snapping in a brand new piece of Pierco 
> foundation.  Looks like one disease or another just waiting to happen. 
> Anybody else feel this way?

Not especially.  This particular comb looks awful and not just in ways that 
are pointed out in the commentary, however comb colour means nothing to me 
except that I know that new white combs are poor for wintering up here in 
the north and good seasoned brood combs are a treasure.

Dark colour can come from several things, age being only one.  For one 
thing, AFB turns comb black, even if it is cleaned up by the bees.  That is 
not a good thing, but there are other causes, too.

Personally, if a comb looks good and raises good brood, it is a valuable 
item, regardless of colour.   If the comb has been in healthy colonies, 
there is no reason to believe that it is contaminated by disease.
  As far as being a disease reservoir, lots of folks irradiate their comb 
and that takes care of that, if there was a problem in  the first place, so 
colour is no issue.

On the other hand, for those who use some of the pesticides which leave 
residues like coumaphos and fluvalinate, colour can indicate that the comb 
has been in the brood chamber for a while and may have a build-up of these 
chemicals.  Apparently Amitraz is less worrisome.

From http://www.apivar.co.nz/information.htm

"Investigations designed to detect residues of active substance in honey, 
wax, propolis and pollen have shown that you may harvest these products 
immediately after the end of the treatment period, no withdrawal time being 
necessary".

Hmmm.

Anyhow Discrimination against combs on the basis of colour is not IMO 
justified unless other things are known, too.  In this particular case, it 
looks to me as if this colony has lots of problems and some of them are not 
shown in  the picture.  Could this comb raise good brood in another colony? 
Perhaps, but without knowing its history, who can say? 

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