Hi Waldemar & all

> What do bees do to cap worker cells in January/February - do they produce
> wax scales from scratch or do they use wax from other areas in the hive ?

Judging by the colouration of the cappings... The very earliest coin sized
groups of cells are capped by re-cycled wax.

By the time that the cluster has become a hollow sphere rather than a ball
with a hole in it. There is adequate volume inside the cluster for
festooning and wax production. The cappings of the disc shaped brood patches
(which are now honey jar lid sized) have a progressively lighter
colouration, suggesting a progressive admixture of fresh wax with re-cycled
wax. (probably running out of easily reached wax to re-cycle)

In full Summer, colonies that have relatively new light coloured comb
produce lighter coloured cappings than bees that have older combs, which
suggests that there is always some wax recycling going on. Having said
that... Cappings over honey are (or can be) almost totally white indicating
that the wax used here is freshly generated.

These are observations about wax useage, they have no bearing on the ageing
process.


Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website...
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman