🐝 Beekeeping Troubleshooting: Diagnostic Guide

About this simulation

This is a simplified model of what a beekeeper reads off a pulled frame during an inspection: the shape of the brood pattern, how many bees are covering the frames, how full the stores are, and whether mites are visible on capped cells. Real diagnosis combines all of these signs at once, not just one number.

How the diagnosis logic works

• Solid, compact brood with good population and stores usually means a healthy, well-mated queen.
• Spotty / "shotgun" brood (scattered empty cells inside the nest) points to a failing or poorly mated queen, or early signs of brood disease.
• No eggs or larvae at all for an extended period, even with plenty of stores and bees, is the classic sign of a queenless colony.
• Visible mites riding on capped brood flags a varroa infestation, which weakens bees and spreads viruses.
• Empty comb with little capped honey, especially with a strong population, signals a starvation risk that needs emergency feeding.

Controls

• Symptom preset — jumps straight to a textbook combination of signs.
• Brood pattern — how scattered the capped brood cells are inside the nest.
• Colony strength — how many bees are covering the frames and flying at the entrance.
• Stores — how much capped honey and pollen surrounds the brood nest.
• Show varroa mites — overlays small mites on capped brood cells and feeds it into the diagnosis.

Did you know?

A healthy queen can lay well over a thousand eggs a day in a tight, near-solid pattern. Beekeepers use the "shotgun" nickname for spotty brood because the scattered empty cells resemble a shotgun blast through the comb.