A frame of capped brood tells an experienced beekeeper a great deal without opening a single cell. A healthy queen lays in a tight, near-solid spiral, so most cells next to each other are the same age and get capped together, leaving a dense, uniform sheet of slightly domed cappings. Gaps, discoloration and sunken or perforated cappings are all warning signs with different likely causes.
Beekeepers often score brood pattern on a simple visual scale during inspections — a "solid" frame with under 10% gaps is considered excellent, while more than a quarter of cells empty or irregular usually triggers a closer look at the queen, mite loads, or disease testing.
An interactive 3D frame of brood cells that you can set to a healthy, spotty or diseased pattern — or hand-paint yourself — while a live diagnosis panel explains the likely cause and the corrective action a beekeeper would take.
A queen laying in a tight spiral produces a dense, near-solid sheet of capped brood. Scattered gaps, sunken cappings and discoloration each point to a different underlying problem — queen failure, Varroa pressure or brood disease.
Pick a preset pattern or adjust the density and disease sliders, then click individual hex cells with the brush tool to paint your own comb. Watch the live percentages and diagnosis text update as you go.
Beekeepers routinely score brood frames this way during inspections — a frame with under 10% gaps is considered excellent, while over a quarter empty or irregular cells usually triggers mite counts or disease testing.