@SouthEastScarp I could not get the link to work…
The site was down for a little while as I changed stream software. It took longer than I expected.
It works now
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Hi Terence, thanks for setting that up. It truly takes a look at the secret lives of bees. Something we can’t really get with an observation hive because we don’t know how much of their communicating with each other is on account of us looking at them.
I see there is washboarding done by a couple of bees. Maybe more of that happens inside a hive than we’d imagine.
They scrubbed every millimeter of the hive, including every cell and surface before they started setting the frame up for brood and starting the new comb.
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They must do a similar treatment to every cell before the queen lays in them. I’ve been recently wondering how it works when a queen doesn’t lay an egg in a cell with wire exposed. I wonder if the bees don’t prepare those cells, therefore she wont lay in an unprepared cell. Or if the queen makes a decision not to lay in that cell because of the exposed wire. My question would be: who decides, the bees or the queen?
Trying to identify which cells are cleaned or not would take a significant amount of time watching the footage. However, given the level of cleaning, I have observed, I would expect that all cells are cleaned and the queen makes the call on where she lays.
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You’ll see in this photo how the queen didn’t lay along the wire. The first generation on that frame.
In this next photo, where the brood is clearly beyond the first generation, the wire has been ignored.
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‘Did I buy a lemon.’
I bought my pine flow hive in December 2016 as a Christmas present to myself.
Because of my wife’s unfounded bee phobia I finally managed in November 2017 to install it with the help of a local traditional beek who also supplied me with the bees.
I have tried every blessed suggestions on the forum but the bees just haven’t taken to the plastic FF. The bottom brood box has been chock a block all the time. I see them all over the FF going in and out of the cells but storing zilch.
About ten months ago I made contact with another flowhiver Jeff Messenger who lives in the same suburb about half a kilometer away who has honey galore. From time to time he comes over and we both inspect the hive. He is baffled too.
Before I use to crow from the rooftops about the Flowhive now I keep my mouth shut. I have to listen to my wife moan about the money I have spent on all the paraphernalia.
I have become the butt of my friends jokes. If I do get any honey how much would it have really cost. Don’t forget to eat it with a toothpick they say!!
I am going to try out one last thing. I have asked Jeff if he would put a couple of my FF in his super at the end of this winter.
If his bees reject that then I would conclude it is definitely the plastic.
I am a former Aircraft Engineer and I know that no matter how strict the quality control there’s always a lemon that rolls off the production line. I’m going to demand an exchange for a new set of flow frames.
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Hi Romeo, it’s possible that you may have a lemon colony. I have a few of those myself at the moment. They need requeening.
What is the status of your brood? Anyway you’re going into winter, so not a good time to try to rectify anything. @Semaphore is down your way, he would be a good bloke to talk to. I guess he would advise you to remove the flow super for the winter period.
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Thanks Jeff. Good to know I’m not alone. For now I’ll take off the super over winter and tackle the issue of re queening later.
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I’m in my third season and finally success is on the horizon and the bees are storing nectar in my flow frames. I too was about to throw my hands up in the air but I did something differently this year. I melted wax and scratched in on the frames and the bees took to it so much better. I hope that helps.
You are so lucky Martha. I tried that several times to no avail.
I’ll give JefH requeening a go as well as put a FF in another FSupwr and see what happens.
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Try smashing some burr comb with a touch of honey in it on the frames too. I did it on section of the bottom the frame. At least it gets them snooping around
Hi Romeo, requeening may be the answer. However couple that with making sure that all the brood frames contain mostly worker comb & the colony is free of disease. This is what I’ll be doing in the coming days.
cheers
It’s not unusual to not get a harvest in the first year of starting a colony whether it’s using Flow frames or traditional frames, it’s more about building the colony. It’s my understanding that SA has a dismal honey season this year so not getting a harvest this year also wouldn’t be uncommon. Here in the West we also had a poor year and there are plenty who got no harvest so I wouldn’t stress too much. I’m not saying the queen wasn’t a contributing factor but it is worth considering that the bees just didn’t have anything for their pantry.
There is a difference between a dud colony and a dud year. 
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Confucius — ‘The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.’
So here goes… How do you post photos on my messages. I have pressed every symbol on the top to no avail. Please help so I can share some pictures.
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You can upload pictures via
or use copy paste for pictures. However I’ve tried multiple times to upload videos to no avail.
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Thanks Martha. That symbol doesn’t show on my top row however I found it at the bottom right hand corner. I’m using an Android phone. It takes me to a camera and camcorder icons so I guess at now Ican take a picture and load it. I’ll try to work out how to get to my gallery. Much appreciated.
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Just click the symbol I showed you and it will ask you to browse for photos on your phone. Choose what you want and there ya go
I’ve done it on another topic! Condensation in top cover.
Thank you Martha!
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