Plenty of fodder for the bees so no excuse for not making any honey. Cold rainy days over here. Will open up hive on a nice day and take some photos of the brood frames.
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It’s beautiful! I see the flow hive back there too! How cold is it with such lush tropical landscape?
Cold and wet winters here in South Australia. And in summer it’s bloody hot.
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Romeoc, I’m in my 3rd season of bees and finally my 3 fully developed hives are filling my flow hive supers. I had to make several adaptations in order to get the bees interested in it. The thing I did differently this year than last aside from a developed hive is I bought some wax and coated the frames with it and the bees have less work to do and hence are now filling it up. Don’t give up because once you discover what works it’s going to be amazing! 
Did you purchase three flowhives at the one time? Wow
I have tried the wax twice and nothing happened. Anyway, on the next nice day I will open up the hive and take some pictures of the frames and post them. Perhaps that might tell a story.
Hi Roeoc,
Do you have any other beekeepers in your area, not necessarily with Flow hives to get an idea if there is an all year round honey production without moving hive to another area. Where I am we get buckets of honey in a very short period, as little as 2 months then its just hive maintenance for 10 months.
If you don’t get a flow during Winter you would not expect to see anything in the Flow supers.
If its a good day say over 22 deg C and sunny photos of your brood box frames as they would be more informative to the group.
But personally I would not disturb the hive till Spring. My bees took 18 months to start filling my Flow frames but once started (filled them in about 3 weeks) all was good for the following years nectar flow.
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Thanks busso. There is another Flowhiver a km and a half away and he harvested three frames last weekend. My only problem is I am at work during the week and the weather invariably seem to be good to open up the hive during the week!
However, if you are saying to leave them alone then perhaps that’s what I’ll do.
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Yes, its hard to wait… paid out all that money and the bees don’t want to play.
One thing is for sure though, if your brood is bursting they will go upstairs. It is in their nature to save honey for the lean times.
There is a lot of work to do in the flow frames as well. The bees will coat every single cell with wax. I think they did every last one of mine before they put a single drop of honey in:unamused:
You spoke of a swap of a couple of frames. Has that happened? Could certainly kick start yours if there was frames with honey.
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Haven’t done the swap as yet as we’re going into winter. Will try in spring.
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Hi @busso, do you mean for Romeo to swap honey flow frames with his neighbour? I would be soooo not doing that (if that’s what you mean). The risk of catching something that’s not in my apiary yet is too great. Not knowing where the neighbour got his bees from, what they were exposed to and such.
I hardly ever even swap frames between my own hives, and never between apiaries. If I swap between hives, I take really good records, so once I find something nasty, I can trace it back.
Once you had AFB in the neighbourhood you become very very cautious and aware.
I would advise Romeo to be patient and wax the flow frames. If there’s no flow, nothing will help. If there is a flow, the bees will go up.
One thing you could do @Romeoc is to move a frame from the brood box up into the flow super in spring. That will speed the bees up for sure.
Or paranoid…
And fair enough, I’d be the same. However it’s not your neibourhood. 
Using your logic, where did your bees come from in the first place?
Use only reputable dealers? Define reputable. 
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Hi Romeo, I’m in Adelaide and my bees spent near the whole season not filling the flow hive but recently with the rain and sunshine I was surprised to find them finally filling the flow frames. I had been about to pack it down and give up for the season. A peek in the back window today showed the middle frames will probably be fully capped in a week or so, they are filling the few rows by the back window. They are busy prepping the outside frames by the look from the side windows so I reckon I might have a flow hive full after all. I think a combination of hot dry weather and nectar scarcity with a not quite ready hive led to their reluctance previously. I’m looking forward to Spring now I know they can do it and I’m sure yours will be too with advice and time.
Helen
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Thank you so much for the update, @Helen_adel. I am glad you decided to leave the Flow super on and see what they did. Sounds like you might have a very nice late harvest! 
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I need a reality check sometimes, me being in WA and you are right on this.
However it does surprise me at times how people go to great lengths to trap and gather swarms which then become part of their apiary, without much thought as to what might be introduced.
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It is advised to quarantine a swarm for at least 3 months before placing into the apiary over here. But not everybody would have that space.
There is a lot of AFB locally. One company lost 85% of their colonies. They must have overlooked an affected colony at their last inspection before winter. A terrible surprise if you find it during the spring flow.
Thanks @ Helen_adel and @Webclan for your input. I think @Martha getting success in her third season has given me the fortitude to wait it out and try out all the suggestions.
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I am in Rheinland-Pfalz on the Mosel, and I am having the same problem since adding the Super about four weeks ago I see no evidence or activity of honey being stored in the plastic frames. I have two brood boxes beneath the Super and they are full of honey and unfortunately swarmed a few days ago so I lost my Queen. There are two Queen cells in the brood box which I will now leave for four weeks. Although I have seen bees wandering around the plastic frames they show no interest in storing honey. The Honey Raum in my German Normal hive is nearly full of stored honey! I will be patient and see what happens over the next four weeks.
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Yes @Bumbleboo patient is the what you need. There are many posts on how to hasten the bees to deposit in the Flow frames (do a forum search). My first hive I did nothing and it took about 18 months to get my first honey. The second flow hive I sacrificed a frame of honey from the brood box and cut chunks of wax and honey and rubbed it into the Flow frames. Very messy but when the nectar flow started the bees cleaned up the mess and started storing in the frames.
After the first harvest there is no delays when the nectar flows.
I have very good German friends in Freiburg and spent many holidays there but yours is a district I have not been to. I will end as he always does…" Noch ein Bier, bitte."
I did a little experimenting when I bought four Flow Hives on how to get the bees using them. The best results was melting some bur comb in a saucepan, you won’t need much, and brush it over the cells with a ‘throw away’ cheap paint brush. The bees went to the frames in a couple of days and the frames I ‘waxed’ were ready for extracting in 6 weeks, those I didn’t wax after 6 weeks they hadn’t worked on so I waxed them as well. Well worth the bit of effort in my opinion.
As @busso says patience is what is needed as well, if there is a lack of nectar about you won’t get honey in the super.
Cheers
Hallo Busso,
Vielen Dank für Ihren guten Rat! I tried something that I remembered reading, about adding a few drops of Lemon Grass to the hive to attract the bees acting like a pheromone. Well I checked this evening and there was no activity apart from a couple of bees wandering around the Super (Kunst Rahmen). Tomorrow I will do as you suggest and rob the brood box of a honey frame and rub it into the Flow Frames. I’ll keep you posted. Und wir haben hier ausgezeichnetes Bier (z.b. Schlappeseppel) und mehr über die Eifel, aber ich bin nicht begeistert von Bitburger (a neighbouring town 69kms) “Bitte ein Bit”. 
