Hi All Murray, you mentioned that you believe some of your bees may clean out silk from cells. It's seems sensible that bees would do this, but I have never seen any evidence to suggest this in any of the hives I have inspected - but given that our bees don't have an interupted brood rearing period it seems likley that they never get a chance. What happens here I believe is that once a cavity is so full of old comb that it just becomes too unhygenic for the bees they leave and in a few days wax moths have destroyed any combs left there. When the bees come back next spring from a fresh swarm they build back the combs on the old design, and the nesting site is rejuvinated. Another thing which intrigues me is the tendency our bees have of propolising drone cells over time leading to smaller drons - this may also have an effect on varroa resistance if our bees have any. As regards the posts suggesting queens will preferably lay on old dark combs - I have never observed this. The older the combs the spottier the brood pattern. Our bees tend to use old combs for polen storage (and I have seen them store pollen in old combs in the middle of the brood nest, with younger combs on either side that were solid brood. Old combs also seem to get a very strong ammonia smell here - something that I would theorize would damage bees developing in them. (When I say an old comb, I mean one that is picth black and which one could almost jump on without damaging it it is so packed with silk) Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis 6139 South Africa Time = Honey If you are not living on the edge you are taking up too much space!!