I had a similar experience this year.  I had one frame that, after last winter, had cells half-filled with pollen that had started to go moldy.  (The frame had been outside of the cluster w/ insufficient honey cover through the winter and the humid conditions in the spring encouraged the mold.)  As the colony grew in strength in the spring, the bees cleaned the area thoroughly all the way down to the Pierco foundation.  Cell walls and rotten pollen were removed completely; I mean the plastic was clean as a whistle over an 8 in. diameter area.  But they would not rebuild the comb in this area!  They capped honey in the cells all the way around this bare patch but they would rather draw plastic frames a few inches away from the cluster than fill in the bare patch...  Finally, 3 months later, they also rebuild this area after they had nowhere else to store honey.

The reluctance was very puzzling.  I could not figure out what did not agree with them in that one area.  Was there a leftover odor of decomposed pollen, did they have 'negative memories' (although the original cleaners would have been long gone since the area was not touched for some 3 months) or do they simply not like plastic.  I suppose I could have coated the area with wax...

Regards,

Waldemar
LI, NY


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Two members of the list have suggested that comb spacing might be
incorrect, perhaps because frames are too far apart, or combs have
slumped, thus causing incorrect spacing, and that this has caused bees
to chew down cells to the foundation. However the frames are closely
spaced and as far as I can tell not slumped - indeed some are Pierco,
and non-bare areas are drawn out and full of brood, which indicates that
comb spacing is not incorrect....

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