Looking for a Good Brood Pattern in Your Beehive

What Does a Healthy Brood Pattern Look Like?

A healthy brood nest is a well-organized area within the hive where developing bees progress smoothly through their life stages. When evaluating a frame, look at the overall picture.

Key indicators include:

• a compact, uniform brood area
• all stages of developing brood
• healthy capped brood
• mostly worker cells with some drones
• stored food near the nest
• plenty of active nurse bees

Eggs, Larvae and Capped Brood

A growing brood nest will have all stages of development present. This includes bee eggs, developing larvae, and capped brood.

Seeing all three stages means the queen has been actively laying over a period of time and the colony is raising new workers consistently.

Healthy capped worker brood should appear uniform in color—usually light brown or tan (caps not the larvae) —with cappings that are slightly raised, intact and dry.

Inside a capped cell, the young bee goes through the pupal stage before emerging as an adult—the final stage of the honey bee life cycle.

Sunken or perforated cappings deserve a closer look because they can indicate disease. Dead brood with sunken caps can be a possible sign of American foulbrood.

Once you understand what to look for, a tight pattern becomes easy to recognize.

Worker Brood vs Drone Brood

Most of the capped brood in a healthy colony should be worker brood. Some drone brood is normal, and the amount varies with the season.

Worker brood has relatively flat cappings, while capped drone brood protrudes from the comb with a raised, rounded or bullet-shaped appearance.

Don’t worry about identifying every cell. Instead, look at the overall population. An unusually large amount of capped drone brood or adult drones may indicate a queen problem.

Food Stored Nearby

A strong colony maintains a supply of pollen and nectar—or honey—near the developing young. This gives nurse bees easy access to food for hungry larvae.

Pollen, or bee bread, is typically stored along the edges of the brood nest, while nectar or capped honey is often stored above.

Good vs Bad: How to Tell the Difference

A good brood pattern is compact and fairly uniform, with most of the cells in an area being used. Brood of similar ages is generally grouped together with relatively few empty cells.

A bad or spotty brood pattern has many empty cells scattered among the developing brood.

You may also see small patches of brood here and there rather than one compact area. This is sometimes called a shotgun or pepperbox pattern.

A few empty cells are normal, so don’t expect every frame to be perfect.

Check the Larvae

Take a closer look at the developing larvae (some beekeepers call them “grubs”).

Healthy bee larvae are pearly white and lie curled in a C-shape at the bottom of the cell. They may look like tiny pieces of thread but are easier to see as they grow.

Brown, discolored or misshapen larvae may indicate a problem. However, don’t panic over a small number of dead larvae if the rest look healthy.

Make a note in your beekeeping journal and check the colony again during your next inspection.

Consider the Queen

In my experience, scattered brood is often caused by a queen problem. A failing queen can produce an increasingly scattered pattern.

Normally, the queen lays one egg per cell, but multiple eggs may indicate a queen problem or possibly laying workers.

However, don’t be too quick to judge a newly mated queen. Young queens sometimes make a few mistakes during their first days of laying. Give her a little time to settle in and check the colony again.

If the poor pattern continues and other causes have been ruled out, it may be time to consider requeening the hive.

Other Colony Conditions

The queen is not always to blame. Food shortages, seasonal changes, Varroa mites and disease can all affect the amount and appearance of brood.

Genetics can play a role too. Bees with strong hygienic behavior may leave more empty cells as they remove unhealthy or mite-infested brood.

All Drones—Oh No!

A colony producing mostly drones has a serious problem. If the drone brood is laid in a fairly tight pattern, you may have a drone-laying queen that can no longer produce fertilized eggs.

Scattered drone brood with no worker brood may indicate laying workers. Either situation requires attention before the colony population declines too far.

Don’t judge the health of a colony by one imperfect frame. If the colony otherwise seems healthy, make a note and check again at your next inspection.

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