Those little ladies are adept at keeping their house in order. My girls regularly chew out and replace cappings. I suspect that they could tell an air filled, closed cell by the feel as they moved over the cap. Inside the hive, bees do pretty much everything by feel and smell I believe.
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thatās right- the so called waggle dance is not observed visually by bees in the dark- it is the vibrations that they pick up on. They must have be incredibly attuned to be able to pick up all the information contained in the dance. I have watched them when I harvest honey- they start uncapping the cells even as the honey drains out. You can see little showers of wax particles raining downā¦ Within two days all cells are uncapped and ready to be refilled. I figure it is a similar capability as when bees must discover that some capped brood has died and uncap and clean out the cell.
edit: oops- I realise I already wrote pretty much the same above.
Infact the bees use dance floors which are well delineated in the hive. Seeley, in his research, transplanted them and the bees found the new location and did not use where they used to be. They seem to be pheromone marked. That way all bees with something to communicate will gather at the same place facilitating optimum recruitment to their newly found source.
If you watch a swarm in bivouac you will see dancers as well.
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Iām not familiar with other ripoffs, and Iām pretty sure this web site is just a reseller, so based on the photos others may figure out the root source of this product.
Just wanted to let you know, the Flow Team may want to send a Cease-and-Desist letter, Romania being part of the E.U.
Itās a common Chinese made version - see a lot of them around on eBay, alibaba, amazonā¦
Thanks for letting us know 
Iāll let the legal team know.
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We have the same problem with Archery Tag. Within a very short space of time counterfeits were on the market. All based in China and happy to advertise their products. For my own safety and the safety of any thing that I sell or use I would never use the fake options. Firstly I doubt they care about the product. If you buy a product from china and need a refund they may be happy to accept it. However the postage is more likely to be more than what you paid. So they can dump fake product on us and it all goes to landfill in this Country. It is a massive problem. As for Australia if we stopped selling China coal it would put a big dent in their manufacturing ability and slow global warming by a factor that Australia could never do. So sorry for the rant. Everyone wants cheap products but very few look at the costs.
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Hi Flow Hive Users-
I would be interested to learn how many of you actually use the original and how many use the chinese copycat?
Who may have experiences with both?
There is not too much info out there comparing both. I could only find this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZrUqsvuTgU
Those of you using the Chinese version: what are your experiences with ist functionality?
Thx.
J.
I canāt comment about the flow mechanism yet. I put bees into the brood box of one a couple of weeks ago. The owner complained that no matter what he did, paint wouldnāt adhere to the wood.
I have only met 3 owners so far. 2 of them said the boxes went together night marishly, while the 3rd said it was a dream to put the boxes together.
I have bought and using the genuine Flow Hive Super(not the complete Flow Hive). It was easy to assemble with the well laid out instructions. I bought the pine version for two reasons, the cost and that it was to be painted white to reflect the heat of my location.
In use I brushed on melted bees wax onto the Flow frames and the bees accepted them with no issues. My first extraction went well taking care that there was 5 degrees of lay back tilt to the hive and that I only opened 20% of the frames at a time to avoid the much talked about flooding, I didnāt have any problems. The mechanism worked as expected.
I have seen the Chinese copy cat and the owners are all having similar issues with jamming mechanisms and the queens getting through the bamboo queen excluder and laying in the āflow framesā. All of the owners I have spoken to regard them as a mistake in buying them and the purchase was made thinking they were buying a ābargainā. One chap was having total rejection of the super by his bees, I helped him paint wax on the frames as he had not done that but a month went by and still the super has not been touched by a single bee.
My assessment is that the copy is a waste of money, the genuine Flow Hive is not cheap but I have after painting the wax on the frames have had no issues. My apiary began as traditional Langstroth hives and bought the Flow Supers as an experiment and I am happy with the result in that it causes no stress to the bees to rob the honey.
Welcome to the forum.
Regards
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I use the original WRC (full flow set, original backer) plus hybrid super that was purchased later (still v1 but there were a few changes to the frames from the original. And no, it isnāt v2 flow hive vintage - purchased over a year before the v2 flow hive).
Went together easy enough. Roof was the only section that had gap issues. Had no issues with the bees taking to the flow frames and I did NOT use wax brushing etc in the first season. In the second season I had to splash some diluted honey water on them to help speed the take-up.
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I know someone else who thr knock off and after 6 months bees hadnāt touched one cell- yet his hive was huge, booming, and packed full of honey elsewhere. He removed and discarded them.
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Alert to @Faroe and the legal team. Walmart in the US is selling knock-off Flow hives. Several choices on their web site, and somebody in my local bee club has actually bought oneā¦ 
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Thanks Dawn,
I was made aware of Walmart a while ago and notifed the whole Flow team.
Itās a shame because people think they are buying the genuine thing because itās walmart. Apparently walmarts noline shop is kinda like ebayā¦
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OK, sorry to have interrupted your evening. I am just getting started on making some gambas (French scampi) with basil lemon cream sauce and spaghettini. Late in France too, but I only just finished work. Must go, got prawns to shell! 
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Sounds nice 
i did a very un-italian thing last night and cooked up some prawns with cream (plus onions, garlic, baby tomatoes, herbs, potato), prawns ala Faroe 
They say no dairy with seafood (my favourite) except of course when itās smoked salmon? Rules that are made to be broken in Italy 
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seems like Flowās legal team has had a win: TapCombās website has vanished, their facebook page has gone dead- with customers who paid for but never received their frames. Caveat Emptor!
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They were so dodgy 
Poor people who have paid and are waiting. I hope they can get their money back somehow.
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