by field bee, I am presuming you mean a forager bee, right? the ones that go out and collect said pollen and nectar? nurse bees clean and make the cells. Bees less than 2 weeks old become involved in cleaning cells and feeding first the older larvae and then larvae of all ages. They do this as long as their glands produce food. Bees from like 8 days to 15 days produce the most wax...they excrete it and it builds up as scales on them actually...they do not spit it up or anything. The scales/chips are pure wax and then removed from their bodies usually by other bees, but sometimes by themselves and THEN chewed, manipulated and used to make comb. you'll often see these 'chips' in fact on the bottom of the hive...they look sorta like big dandruff flakes. Nurse bees meet the older bees around the entrance of the hive and take the pollen and nectar from the older forager bees and deposit it into the cells. So ya, most of the bees on the frames will be house bees. at about the third week, young bees will start taking their orientation flights at the entrance of the hive, and its sorta cool to watch. there are also propolis holding bees, who literally just hold propolis for when it is needed. they do not 'store' propolis in cells for when they need it. After 3 weeks and obviously after orientation flights, bees become foragers, just as new bees are hatched and come in to replace them as nurse bees.
P.s. This is also why many suggest feeding your bees 1:1 syrup when new, or when they are in need of cell building. and 1:2 when just trying to feed them. It takes the equivalent of roughly 8 lbs of honey to make 1 lb of wax.... thats like 3/4 a gallon of honey (a gallon of honey is typically 12 lbs. a gallon of water is typically 8 lbs.) queens furthermore do not lay steadily throughout the year. they peak, then slow for a week or two, then peak again smaller, a month or two later. That will mean of course that the younger bees between the 8-15 day 'wax creating stage' will also peak and slow of course. requeening does actually off set this peak for the time of year, but it will still have a strong peak then a weaker one. at least in my area...it may very well be different, and surely is, in different climate zones.
Topic: Field vs House Bees (Read 2088 times)