I’m confess I am confused @wykradt
Are you saying that the Flow frames are causing the bees to refuse to go up into the super and put honey in the wooden frames?
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I understand what you are feeling and thinking. The mistake often is that the colony needs to be full of bees and needing more storage space for honey before they will use the flow frames. If you added another box of foundation to a colony that was not needing it, that had plenty of bee space and unused frames in the brood, and after a few weeks the bees were not using the added super we would assume the box was added when it was not needed. But when we add a Flow Super with the same results a lot of more traditional bee keepers blame the plastic.
Yes, it can be a bit frustrating for the bees to use the plastic for the first time but after that the bees seem to accept it. I guess what I am saying is that the bees will use the flow frames for the first time when they have no other option.
I know of one bee keeper not on this forum who uses plastic foundation sheets but says bee would not use a flow frame because it is plastic 
Food for thought
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@Dan2
No, I am saying that the bees obviously for whatever reason do not go up there, although there is very little bee space in the brood box. I am putting up the wooden frames with wax sheets, because that material they seem to take to. The wax frame we hung into the honey super was the only frame they really took to. As detailed above: no unused frames in brood box, honey, pollen, nectar and decreasing brood. According to my mentor: one of the strongest hives in the colony, other hives producing honey, well filled supers, no honey in super with me. I am running the risk of weakening the hive, that is what I am not willing to do. This is what my mentor who works directly with me told me. Since I am a beginner, I have to stick rather to the advice of the man who works the bees with me. Next year: strong hive with flowframes.
@Peter48
We tried to give them no other option: I reduced a good hive from two boxes to one, there is virtually no more bee space in the brood box, there are absolutely no unused frames, still they do not go into the Flowframes. I can’t risk weakening the hive further, so that’s why I exchanged the plastic frames for wax frames. We will try the plastic frames again next year with a stronger hive.
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There is no argument from me as to you thinking it out except that you are concerned the hive is running the risk of weakening but you also say the frames are all full of bees, etc, but then I am not there and your climate is totally different to mine, ok…
I sure hope you have better next year with the flow frames and you can at least compare your positive results with us all…
Regards
Hi Bertram, I think one could say just as easily that the bees also “rejected” the wooden frames with wax foundation as you say “the bees are reluctant to put honey even into the classical frames in the honey super” . I would probably be more concerned as to that issue rather than the fact that the bees did not put honey in the Flow frames. What did your mentor say to you about the fact that the bees were reluctant to put honey in the classical frames in the super? Surely he had an explanation as to that?
The fact that the brood box is full after you have now reduced the hive from two brood boxes to one, and that it now has no unused space does not mean that the colony was strong enough at the appropriate time to fill two boxes and then put honey into the super. I’m suspicious you are now in a dearth and your decreasing brood is evidence of the resources for the bees at present. I think if you had a really strong colony with lots of bees and a good nectar flow in spring and early summer, the bees would have stored honey in your classical frames and probably even the Flow frames.
What configuration of frames did you have in the super? Did you have the Flow frames at the sides and the classical frames in the centre?
How would this help you get honey if the bees were reluctant to put honey in the classical frames in the honey super?
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As you could read in my posting from yesterday: I am not turning my back to flow frame, I will try again next year.
I would also like to say that a lot of german beekeepers, all traditionalists, are very suspicious of Floframe, so it is hard enough to find an open-minded mentor who is not only willing to try it out, but also interested in making it work.
Again: I am a beginner, so - so far - I can only relate what my mentor tells me. The hive was according to his words the strongest that came over the winter - he had taken care of it. We had it in two boxes plus honey super. At the beginning (i.e. in the spring flow) I had only flowframes in it. The bees were storing honey in the waxframes in the box directly underneath the honey super. So we first hung one, then a second wax frame into honey super. Positions first 3 from the right, then 2 and 3 from the right. We had honey dearths in spring due to bad weather, so loss of honey, they took the honey from the two wax frames in the honey super down into box Nr 2.
Following advice here in the forum (my other thread, see link in starting post) we reduced the hive by one box. So far there has been no swarm leaving the hive, we controlled that very closely. No diseases, not even varroa or to a very minute extent. So it is hard for me to see why the hive shouldn’t be strong enough, but I know still very little about bees. My mentor I think does know about them, running 200 hives, earning his money by honey selling, and this year being installed as an official pollinator - don’t know about the rest of the world, in Germany you’ve to pass a rather strict examn.
As for honey flow: there is lots of (I do not know the english expression, we call it “Blatthonig”) “leaf honey” on lime, maple and fir, the other hives in the colony have plenty in their honey supers.
As for the flowframes: it took me since March 29th to even get the bees to start coating the flowframes with wax, we doused them with honey water, we rubbed wax on them, we even coated them with melted wax from the same hive. that happened 10 days ago. All they did was to coat them to a very little extent with old brown wax that they took from the brood box. See pictures above, I took them yesterday. They are busy on the two waxframes, but putting not very much in there, only in the brood box, by that reducing brood space.
And no, I did not paint the hive or put anything on it, it is in its original state.
So: plan for 2019 is to start an even stronger colony, hope for good nectar flow and try the flowframes again. I will be running a second Langstroth hive by the classical method and try to compare.
I do still believe in Flow HIve, why else should all others be successful with it. But both me (gullible beginner) and my mentor (experienced, but only in classical) do not yet really know why it did not work. 2019 will be the fourth year I will try Flow Hive, but try I will and keep on trying.
Sorry If my tone was off, I did not want to have an argument, heavens no.
As to our climate: wet, cold winters, spring started end of March, weather intially good, but then whenever a flow was to be expected very heavy rainfall washing it all down. Good weather now since three weeks and outlooks good, honey already rich on lime and maple leaf, fir to follow.
The risk of weakening is something my mentor saw: since the bees have been reluctant even to build wax into the flowframes so far and are storing honey only in the brood box, less cells remain for the queen to lay eggs.
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Traditional beekeepers everywhere are like that. If you spend much time reading this forum, you will notice that many people have encountered hostility and skepticism towards Flow hives. It isn’t just the Germans, but I understand your problem.
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No problems at all, we are all wanting to help with advise from our own experiences. Rain can give you a dearth when there is a strong flow on and that is sad, but hey, who said bee keeping was easy 
You hang in and try the flow frames again next year.
What I did with my Flow Frames was to ‘paint’ melted wax onto the cell ends and after two weeks the bees are up in the flow super having a look about, at the same time I added conventional supers to my other hives with some interest in building out the wax foundation but this is my winter with 10c to 25c and good honey and pollen coming in, as it does all of the year. I figure my weather will start to warm up and things will happen quickly in a few weeks with our Spring flowering already happening.
Regards to you Bertram
Hi Bertram, do stick at it and stay determined. Things change in colonies and they can go from good to bad and vice versa irrespective of what the beekeeper does or doesn’t do.
Last year I had a colony that looked strong enough but no matter how many times I put a super on (wooden and wax frames - not Flow frames) the bees refused to store nectar in it. Finally, in late summer, I experimented by using a rapid feeder to feed sugar syrup. Wow! Did they start storing that stuff. Litre after litre of it until the super was so heavy I couldn’t lift it! I’m certain if I’d had the Flow frames in there they would have filled them too. Good luck next year and stay positive 
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Look closely, they FINALLY are/were working the flow frames! They started building wax bridges and completing the uncomplete cells. So I’m pretty sure that you WILL get a flow harvest next year! 
I’m totally with you withdrawing the flow super and allowing the colony to build up for winter at this point. It’s a little late for a simple split, but maybe if your mentor gives you a queen, you can start a second colony and build that up to be strong enough for a comparison of systems next year. One flow hive, one classical wax frame hive. That’s what I would always do and what I actually did. And always keep in mind to stack up on drawn comb to fix any issues developing from lack of comb (my last years’ splits starved in february because they didn’t have enough comb to store the food I gave them) and for hive hygiene (exchange old, dark comb). I have one hive in charge of drawing fresh comb and storing enough honey to feed the flow hive colony. I hope I don’t need to feed sugar at all this year!
Oh, and if you don’t mind, I’d say you might bother the girls a little too often… Last year I had some severe health problems inclulding hospital stays and was not able to perfom regular hive checks, let alone in a weekly turnus. I just left them alone for months and they did well (just as well as the weather and poor flow let them). So I repeated that this year - just let them do their thing and just checked occasionally - and you see the outcome. They are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves without stoopid hoomin interacting every other day 
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I totally agree with @AngoraAngy’s excellent observations. This year’s late Spring in much of Europe caused problems for a lot of beekeepers. Hopefully you will have better luck next year, and it should be a lot faster now they have waxed some of those cells so nicely. Just don’t operate the Flow mechanism or wash the frames in hot water - you don’t want to undo all of that work! 
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This i an interesting observation. We had a talk from a commercial beekeeper with 1500 hives a few months ago at our bee society and his theory on hive inspections is to do them as little as possible. From what I understood of his method he does three inspections over spring- which are swarm management and general inspections. He replaces several frames over these inspections (between 3 and 4) as he believes new fresh comb is the key to long term hive health. He likes to rotate out all brood combs over every two to three years so there are none older than 3 years in his brood box. He keeps a lot of virgin spun honey frames in a huge freezer so he has them ready each spring. He said that the propolis seal the bees make is their ‘immune system’ and that breaking it sets back the hive, opens it up to disease, etc. It makes sense to me. The bees clearly know what they are doing…
I know that in Varroa countries you need to make inspections more often unfortunately- but myself I am loathe to do it too often. I feel that the bees set things up just how they like it- and breaking open the hive and moving the frames causes them quite a bit of disturbance.
@wykradt looking at your frame pictures- you say that the bees started putting ‘old wax’ up in the super- what I see is more like propolis than wax. I have seen this in flow hives where the bees take a long time to start working the frames: they start filling in the little bridges with darker propolis and the frames start to look darker in general. When bees really take to flow frames in early spring the wax bridges tend to be made from nice white virgin beeswax. Anyhow- sorry to hear you din’t get a harvest from them this year: hopefully coming into next spring the bees will start on the frames earlier. I hope you have a big honey flow next year.
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Hi Bertram and everyone who has contributed in this thread. It has been really wonderful reading everyone’s suggestions and feedback, and to witness the great support that this forum is capable of offering.
Bertram, I’m really sorry to hear of the extensive trouble you’ve been having and I would like to reiterate our sincerities that we will support you until you reach success. I will personally consult with Cedar on this case to find a most effective solution for you. However, for the sake of acknowledging this thread and Flow offering their support, I would like to summarise my suggestions also.
- Whether you choose to run a Hybrid set up or full Flow Super, only add the Flow Frames when every other frame in the hive is completely drawn out. I also believe it is strange to see the bees building burr comb on top of the Flow Frame, but there shouldn’t bee open space available enabling them to do so
- Only use 1 brood box and 1 Flow Super in your hive set up
- Only add the Flow Super when your brood box is heaving with bees and looks similar to the photo below
- Only add the Flow Super when you know from local and experienced knowledge that there is plenty of forage available for your bees and it is the right time in the season
As mentioned already, every bee colony is different and their performance can depend on a myriad of factors. Bees will show preference to traditional empty frames, however, after your first harvest you will not notice a difference. I strongly recommend you adopt an intuitive and carefully observant approach for reading your hive and environment in order to make the right decisions for your colony.
Thanks again for adopting the right attitude Bertram and I look forward to consulting your by email and reaching success with your Flow Frames.
Bianca
Flow Team
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Hello Jack,
I will be interested to see if beekeepers choose to go foundationless/small cell in their methods when/if varroa does arrive in Australia.
It seems that you could be proactive by following Natural Beekeeping methods, and that would help out the bee genetics in your country right from the start.
Because we do not have problems with varroa, I rarely need to get into the brood box of my hives. A few times in Spring and then again in the fall, to access how strong the hive is going into winter.
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Hi Tracey. Don’t you treat for varroa? If not, do you believe it’s because you go foundationless?
Are your hives quite isolated, meaning, don’t you have beek neighbours?
Even though Australia doesn’t have varroa yet, I think we better get good ideas on what we do when the mites come. Our family is in support of natural beekeeping methods. Guess oxalic acid is natural.
We are just feeding some of our hives with a Mushroom solution as a trial to raise immunity and treat for chalkbrood.
Hello Web Clan,
We have been Natural Beekeepers since we began keeping bees 12 years ago and we have not had issues with varroa in our tinty urban apiary. Yes, we do have neighbors who keep bees (and mites) and our experience is quite different.
If you are not familiar with Michael Bush or Hilary Kearney, you should read what they have to say about the benefits of naturally drawn comb and natural beekeeping methods. I just don’t understand why so many people keep treating when there is an easy solution that will actually save a beek lots of time, and money, and help to promote stronger bee genetics.
Yep, read Kearney and Bush. I understand they suffered big losses initially.
It’s hard to know what we would do if we lost entire colonies.
It would be awesome if we didn’t have to treat though, so it may be well worth to go through the hard times.
Our bees have never seen varroa, so they will be learning in the beginning. Wonder if hygienic bees could recognize mites in the brood and clean out the affected?
What do varroa hardy bees do differently?
My understanding is that there is a disruption of the varroa life cycle with small cell brood, so the varroa never get a foothold. The other aspect is that the microclimate inside the hive is not being constantly disrupted by chemical treatments, which will be knocking out unknown beneficial hive dwellers as well as continuing to create stronger varroa as you kill off the weaker mites (like the problems we have now due to the overuse of antibiotics).
As far as huge losses, I know that Michael Bush states he experienced this, but he also stated he lost just as may bees when he treated.
We just host a few hives each year, so any losses are easily made up with a swarm or split.
I’ve never hosted hygienic bees, but I’ve read that the nurse bees are vigilant about detecting mites (by smell) and boot the infected brood. Sounds like a good trait to encourage 
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Smaller cells and a shorter brood cycle by 1 day is the reason why Asian honey bees are not affected by varroa.
We are off to a good start then going foundationless. I’ve never measured if they make smaller cells, but so it is said.
Thanks for your ideas Tracey.
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