Brood comb

The brood comb is the beeswax structure of cells where the queen bee lays eggs. It is the part of the beehive where a new brood is raised by the colony. During the summer a good queen may lay 1500-2000 eggs per day, which results in 1500-2000 bees hatching after the three-week development period. The brood comb is the beeswax structure of cells where the queen bee lays eggs. It is the part of the beehive where a new brood is raised by the colony. During the summer a good queen may lay 1500-2000 eggs per day, which results in 1500-2000 bees hatching after the three-week development period. The brood comb is usually found in the lower part of the beehive, while the honeycomb may surround the brood area and is found exclusively in the honey supers. When a queen does not have enough brood comb to lay eggs, usually due to congestion from pollen or honey, the bee colony may be more prone to swarm. The hexagonal prismatic cells for the brood comb vary in size. The diameter ranges between less than 4.6 millimetres (0.18 in) to greater than 6 millimetres (0.24 in). Drone bees require the largest cell size. There is some evidence that suggests that a smaller cell enables faster development time from egg to a fully developed, adult bee.