Drone Frame
Lexikon
The building frame is an empty frame without foundation, which the bees draw out themselves as free natural comb.
The building frame is an empty frame without foundation, which the bees draw out themselves as free natural comb. Because bees building freely without foundation prefer to build drone cells, building frame and drone frame are often used as synonyms in practice.
For the beekeeper, the building frame provides two useful pieces of information at once: first, the state of construction shows how well the colony is doing at the moment, since a colony under stress or with health problems often draws a building frame only hesitantly or not at all. Second, the bees' natural urge to build diverts part of their energy to the building frame, which can dampen swarming fever, since the bees can satisfy their building urge there instead of starting swarm cells.
A common mistake is simply to ignore the building frame once it is capped. Since the Varroa mite prefers to reproduce in capped drone brood, the building frame should be checked regularly and cut out in good time before the drones emerge. Anyone who cuts too late not only risks unnecessarily many drones but also gives the Varroa mite time to multiply undisturbed in the colony.