There are no overt problems in my apiary. Brood patterns are good. Varroa
infestation rates (yes, I measure) are monitored and oxalic or formic acid
treatments used to treat appropriately. Of course, some colonies do better
than others, but whether that is due to suboptimal mating or another cause
remains a matter of conjecture.

My interest in the topic of culling old combs stems from a desire to do
better. I've kept bees since the early 1970s, and have only ever culled
brood combs that were savaged by wax moths, mice, or in which the bees had
decided to make large areas of drone comb.

I have seen exhortations from other beekeepers that rotating old comb out
of the apiary will improve colony health, honey production, etc. I can't
help but think of small cell foundation and those who believe it can help
solve many beekeeping problems.

Bottom line: I've never experimented to see if putting new foundation into
colonies would make a difference. Would my honey production ultimately be
higher? Would my overwineter colony loss decline? Maybe I should start
selling nucs so that there's a year-on-year need for new brood combs to
replace those going out the door...Even then, I'm not sure that the small
numbers of colonies I could make observations on (with/without 'new combs')
would have a statistically significant difference in any readily measured
outcome. So, I'm looking for observations that were part of someone's
graduate student's thesis project...science done right.

>
>
> What you haven't said is the condition of your colonies.  Is there
> something going on that troubles you?
>
>
>

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