Bees capping empty drawn cells

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Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
22
Reaction score
0
Location
West Wales
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
3
Hi,

I have been a member of my local BKA for 3 years and have had bees of my own for 18 months. I split my one colony earlier in the year so now have 3.

All are doing well but the smaller of the splits currently has 5 seams of bees and 4 with emerging brood. They are dummied down to 8 frames in a national hive.
They have had apiguard on for 10 days now and think it has probably temporarily put the queen off lay, hence no unsealed brood.

My question is, why have the bees capped off empty cells?
Had a quick look today to check on stores the bees were very placid.
I noticed the last frame next to the dummy board had a very small patch of capped stores but the top half of the rest of the foundation had been mostly drawn out on the colony side but the base of the cells chewed through. However the bees had capped off the cells with not a trace of honey in them.
Why would the bees cap off empty cells.

See photos attached.

The first 2 picture are the side that was nearest the colony, the last 2 pictures of undrawn foundation are of the side next to the dummy board.
Just interested to know if anyone knows why the bees have done this.
They have adequate stores in the rest of the hive.
 

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