A brood nest that is pollen bound may occur with strong pollen flow in spring or fall. Spring pollen drives brood expansion in colonies and fall pollen allows bees to rear the fat fall bees that will survive overwinter. Brood rearing drives pollen collection and vice versa. The incoming pollen, stored as bee bread, is usually stored in cells located between the active brood rearing cells and the stored honey cells and in comb cells that are adjacent to the brood area. If cells of the central frames have most of two or more frames with bee bread stored from the previous season, it may potentially limit normal expansion of the spring colony. This may be temporary. In most instances the stored bee bread will be used rapidly and the cells freed for queen egg laying. It is relatively rare that colonies might have “too much” bee bread or instances when there is “too much” pollen coming into colonies for it to be used to rear brood. But the impression that a colony might be pollen bound persists.
In the case of honey bound, it appears as honey-filled cells or cells being filled with incoming nectar that may lead to the designation of the colony being honey bound. In instances of a strong nectar flow, and no or too few empty comb cells in supers (or no supers on the colony), the worker bees will store the nectar in worker cells of the brood nest. The queen will not be able to restock the cell with an egg. Thus brood rearing space may be limited. This is seldom a problem since following the nectar flow, in most locations and in most seasons, the colony will begin to limit brood rearing following the summer solstice.
Honey bound is also seen in instances where the frames above the spring brood area still have stored honey not consumed by the overwintering bees. The brood area is normally expanded to combs above and to the outside in the spring. If there are many cells that still hold honey, expansion of the brood area may be slowed until the honey cells are emptied and then readied for queen egg laying. This might occur in springs following mild winters or when management utilizes too few supers to hold honey, especially in those seasons where nectar flows are stronger than normal.
Remedy for pollen or honey bound, if either is believed to be the situation. is to move pollen- or honey-filled frames to the edge of the brood box(es) or remove such frames completely from the hive. The frames can be given to weaker colonies in need of pollen or honey or stored briefly to be given to colonies later in the season when they might better use these stored resources.
Burlew R. 2018. Can a colony collect too much pollen? Honey Bee Suite. Accessed 2024. https://www.honeybeesuite.com/can-a-colony-collect-too-much-pollen/
LeaseHoney. n.d. What does it mean when a hive is honey bound? LeaseHoney. Accessed 2024. https://leasehoney.com/2021/02/15/what-does-it-mean-when-a-hive-is-honey-bound/
