I’ll pay that. 
well i’ve checked the definitions in Australia, which say robbery is theft by force. Umm. I suppose we do ‘crack the hive’ - which is to break the seal of the hive and then we use a smoker to distract the bees. Does that constitute a threat in itself or do we create the fear of a threat i.e. fire?
Let’s Crack the hive and rob the harvest.
Here’s some tricks for a hybrid and it starts as they say in the beginning.
Wash your frames with rain water or well water.
Dry them in the sun - don’t try to flick the water out otherwise you will play 83 piece pickup.
Spray them with honey water ( of your own is best - store bought is cooked to an inch of its recognisable life - and vaguely resembles honey - it is ok)
This will get the bees working the Flowframes - if the bees are bringing in nectar. Keep a watch on the frames and shift them from the middle to outside and swap sides as they fill. Leave the Lang frames full and or only take what you need. You will soon have a crop to crack, rob and harvest.
May not be. You are probably saying to cook it to kill off disease, and the disease risk is important. However, heating honey can result in the formation of considerable amounts of HMF, which is toxic to bees. Better to use your own honey, or white sugar syrup.
Some people on this forum have had problems with this. The outer frames can have extended wax on the outer faces, so if you move them away from the wall, the bee space is messed up and the frames may not fit in the box properly.
Hi Dawn,
My apologies for my Aussie explanation. I do agree to use your own Honey or white sugar syrup - with new keepers their own honey isn’t always available. Store bought honey here in Australia is already heat treated ( pasteurised as such) and filtered to the point I would call it brown sugar syrup in a jar. I dont advocate heating the honey. The use of sugar syrup feeding I find disturbing - now that I have visited the US recently and witnessed this. This is another topic completely.
With the regard to managing and moving Flow frames in a hybrid.
Refers to - in a 10 frame box ( 4 Flowframe - 4 Lang ) the 4 Flowframes in the centre location of the box the langs 2 either side on the outside edges.
Shuffle these as they start filling - my method - move the far right Flowframe to the far left position - slide them along. Doing this at intervals keeps the bees working them evenly and they don’t just concentrate on one frame in the one position. Your bee space shouldn’t be an issue the outer Lang frames are just as regular frames. I hope that gas explained myself further - my apologies again if I have misinterpreted.
Australian honey is not pasteurised, stop spreading BS.
Not even ‘big bad’ Capilano pasteurise their honey:
http://www.capilanohoney.com/au/faq/is-your-honey-pasteurised-do-you-heat-honey
I wish there was a dislike button on this forum.
i had planned to shuffle flow frames around to get them filled evenly- however there are a few reasons I don’t plan to do this anymore:
the bees propolise the flow frames together at the rear side making up that rear viewing window. Also the bees can attach the flow frames to the queen excluder below them. When you remove a frame you disturb the propolis seal- and when you replace it bees can get squashed at the bottom of the frames by the broken bridge/burr comb stuck to the QX. Also unless you did it very regularly there can be an issue with the outermost faces of the flow frames being drawn out further than the inner ones. When you move a frame the bee space changes between frame faces. My brother recently shuffled some frames around and ran into this issue. He doesn’t have a hybrid flow- and I think this issue is possibly more serious in a hybrid as the spaces between flow and regular frames are not as even as the spaces in a regular super or a full flow super. The two outermost frames in a hybrid have an extra 6mm or so on their outer faces of potential space for the bees to build out into.
Also I had an issue recently when I removed flow frames for inspection- when I removed one the two beside it ‘relaxed’ a little in towards the removed frame. It then became tricky to re-insert that frame evenly. It took me a lot of jiggling and maneuvering to get it to sit back in line with the other frames.
For these reasons I no longer plan to move frames from whatever position they are in. I get the feeling the bees produce x amount of nectar and will put it wherever they want to. Jiggling the frames may get it in more evenly distributed but I don’t see it increasing the rate at which the bees store honey.
I completely agree the manipulating the Flow frames in the box isn’t pleasant. The way the frames need to be aligned to close the rear gap and held into place with the grub screw works against them being easy to manipulate. I’d argue that not having the rear window integrated into the frame would make them a little easier to manage.
I also posted a photo in another thread showing the bee space issue at the bottom of the Flow super and the increased tendency the bees seem to have to build burr/bridge comb off the bottom of the Flow frames.
So for those of you that have seen previous posts and comments in other threads you would be aware that my hive is setup as:
Half height
Hybrid flow super (3 flow frames, 4 std deep frames)
Full flow super (6 frames; so an 8 frame langstroth equiv)
Brood box
I’ve also commented before about how the bees preferentially work the flow frames in the hybrid super. Today I took a pic of the typical frame I’ve been seeing in the full flow super - and you can see it is very patchy. All cells have been worked and sealed (and repaired after the first harvest) but again I’m getting big empty patches in the flow frame (I harvested last time even though the frames weren’t full - they had these gaps of varying sizes).
These frames were last harvested in early/mid Nov-2016 and all had similar gaps in how they were being worked.
By way of contrast, the flow frames in my hybrid super get fully utilised by the bees. I harvested the frames in the hybrid super for a second time back on Aus Day and they are already between 1/5th and 1/3rd full depending on the frame.
I didn’t have issues with the bees starting to work the frames and seal gaps etc but they do really seem reluctant to fully fill the flow frame. To see if I can overcome this I took honey from the hive, mixed it with water, and brushed it back over all of the frames with the gaps earlier this morning.
If I see a difference I’ll come back with a follow-up post.
Has anyone else noticed similar incomplete filling of the flow frames when they compare a hybrid super to a full flow super?
So to confirm you are running a total of 9 flow frames in an 8 frame Langstroth hive? Brood box, full Flow super on top of that with the hybrid Flow at the top?
Has this always been the configuration? or was the full Flow super undersupered?
@RBK correct. That has always been the configuration.
To get the bees to move into the full flow super initially I took one flow frame out and cycled a regular frame through early in (fake) spring for a few weeks. This helped encourage the bees to move into the super and helped build colony strength.
Once the full flow super was about half full and the colony bursting at the seams I put the hybrid on top. And it’s been in the configuration ever since, with the bees preferentially bypassing the full flow super and working the hybrid.
It’s odd- I am running three flow hives currently- one full flow six frame- one hybrid- and one special 3 flow frame nuc sized super.
I have just harvested 4 of the six frames in my full flow. I am yet to harvest anything from my hybrid (other than one standard frame). In my full flow the bees are working all the frames evenly. In my hybrid all 4 regular frames are 100% capped- the flow frames only 50% after months.
I have a feeling the colony with the hybrid is weaker- but so far I much prefer full fl supers to hybrids…
@Semaphore That’s interesting (re: your experience). Based on what I’m experiencing I’m actually thinking of going to 2x hybrids next year (and only going with 6x flow frames total as opposed to my current 9)
I have a couple of hybrid boxes and the bees have just started capping the std frames and it would seem they use the FF to ripen the nectar before moving it elsewhere.
The supers have been on since November and I haven’t harvested yet… The plan was to leave the std frames for winter as they were supposed to fill the FF first…
@skeggley That’s an interesting point…and not something I had considered. Thanks. I’ll pay more attention to the nectar and honey in the hive. I’ll see if I can dig up photos from the last few inspections (I used to take photos of every frame every inspection but have taken less each time).
Yes I think we can all relate to this.
I think mine do the same.
Ok, so the two foundationless frames are nearly capped yet the centre FFs are still being used as a transitional store… Once the end frames are fully capped it will be interesting to see what they decide to do and with the way things are travelling it won’t be long.
Mine worked the traditional frames and flow frames in the hybrid super in parallel, with a slight preference for the traditional frames.
RBK. I think Capilano owns several other brands, not sure but are the other brands imported honey?
I am a newbie. Have had my hybrid super (4 flow/4standard) going for about 5-6months and have harvested the flow frames twice. I assume the outer standard frames are full as it took a little less time to fill the flows second time around. The bees did however start on the flow frames a couple weeks after the super was added (with empty standard frames).