Some folks take a bit of burr comb saved from inspection and just rub it across the surface of the frames…but @Bobby_Thanepohn went a few steps further & posted a really nice video 
Maybe he or someone can dig it up & repost!
I painted them with melted wax from my other hives…they seemed to like it. They reused the wax…shaping it and using it to seal joints in the cells before putting nectar in them.
The bees definitely need to be on a flow of nectar before they will store in them.
Faroe…some of the cells hadn’t been capped but we needed to get the frames off before the ivy flowers as I wanted my bees to fill up with that for winter.
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Great job"" And great story. We just harvested a couple of our first flow hives here in Western Montana. The main problems we had was turning the key to break the cap wax. Maybe Montana bees building tougher cap wax. Wouldn’t know as we’re new to bee keeping. Could be it was only a 75 degree day, as its cooling fast here. But even to break open a few cells at a time would nearly twist the key handle out of angle, I was really worried about breaking the plastic somehow. Next we had to design a bee proof containment from the tub to the jar, as it took an hour or so to drain one. And the first time leaving a towel wrapped around it didn’t work, and we lost a hundred or so bees trying to retrieve their lost honey. The flow hives preformed just as stated once we were able to break them free. Also “we found it important” to open and close all of the cells several times to get them to drain properly. The honey that came from the hives was outstanding and our fullest flow hive contained nearly 7 pounds of thick yellow/orange delight:) Thanks Flow Hive Team"“
Other than a slow delivery date last spring, everything is just as they said it would be. I do advise setting your system up with a few standard frames on either side of the flow frames. As the bees only inspected them in the beginning, but once they got started filling the standard frames on either side, they soon started in on the flow hives. Not sure what they would do if they didn’t have that choice.
Going to leave a nearly full super on both new hives this winter. Only harvesting one flow hive from each box. And each box contains 3 flow hives center, and 3 standard frames each side. The bees also have started in on some 6” standard frames in the top box I set up there for them last month. So both our new hives did not have any problems working with the new flow hives, and seem to have grown very fast for their first year getting started in Western Montana. Their main food was my parents huge garden, 12 acres of pasture, my many garden ponds from my pond business, and the thousands of acres of forest that surround us. Happy Bee Keeping to all"""" Randy
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This is great and gives me hope! So many of the local traditional bee keepers have been SO negative, and i’ve even been laughed at. I’m in the midlands, and we have OSR near by too. whereabouts in wales are you?
My bees seem to be doing ok - can’t wait to get my flow frames on in the spring!
The laughter and derision had been directed at people who think they can have honey on tap without keeping bees.
Once you learn how to keep bees the flow is your oyster
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4 posts were merged into an existing topic: How to encourage bees to fill the Flow Frames
Lol…you should see some of the comments I get on the Beekeeping Forum…however…it serves a purpose as it makes other beekeepers find out about the Flow…which they wouldn’t if I didn’t bend their ears about it.
Any news on the rape seed honey? Have you harvested any this year?