Think it would be great R&D for the Flow team 
Hi Jeff, I appreciate you thinking on behalf of them though.
To be honest, looking at the state of the landing board, I wouldn’t blame the quality of the natural timber (which is exactly what it is, natural untreated timber) but instead how the hive was treated. We recommend to all our customers that they paint the Ara hives to support the longevity of the timber, and this information is included in our email and website support materials.
Are the Flow Frames not completely opening due to cold, stubborn wax or propolis caught in the bottom section of the Flow Frames? Jeff have you tried warming the frames to 35°C+ or so and holding the frames in the open position (try using 2 Flow keys) to push through any stubborn wax/propolis?
An effective way to warm the frames is by keeping them in a black tub or plastic bag in the direct sun on a warm day for a couple of hours.
I wonder if you can tell if the slime out reached the Flow Frames? Does this ever happen since the larvae can’t penetrate the plastic?
Hi Bianca, thanks for your replies.
I would say that the bottom board got painted the same as the rest of the hive, which seems to have held up pretty well.
We did use 2 keys while opening & closing the frames while in the flow super. It must be what you & @Dawn_SD suggested “stubborn wax/propolis”.
The slime-out got right through the hive, even up into the roof cavity. Every part of the flow frames has that strong unique hive beetle odor, even after a solid water blasting. Therefore I wont spend any more time on them until the owner takes a look after we come out of lock-down.
I’ll scorch the inside of the supers & roof to remove the odor. Bees don’t like the scorched smell either. However the scorched smell is probably the least offensive to them. As long as I add a colony with lots of brood, they get over the scorched smell & stay without absconding.
Sadly the colony/hive was left to it’s own devices. Therefore once hive beetles get a chance to take over, there’s no holding them back. They just slime everything.
PS. Hive beetles are insidious, in that once hive material has been slimed, I find that nothing in nature will go near it.
A short story: A bloke offered me his hive that got slimed out 12 months earlier. It was either to my place or the rubbish tip, so I accepted it. A single brood, single honey super. The brood box was basically bare frames with remnants of wax in the top wires, with mud & greater wax moth cocoons everywhere. Which nearly chewed through some of the frames.
However the top box still had full frames of honey, slimed & in a terrible state. I was just amazed that after 12 months of being slimed, nothing like ants, cockroaches, rats or mice went near the honey. While I worked on it, cleaning the frames etc, not one bee came near me. I was pleased about that because I wasn’t sure what the colony died out from. I can’t help repeating myself, but nothing in nature wanted to go near any part of the hive, except for the wax moth that took care of the contents in the brood box. They didn’t seem interested in the wax from within the honey frames.
I’d better close, cheers
2 Likes
So interesting, Jeff! Dreaded SHB, they must be good for something. Thanks for sharing.
I agree Biance, they’re probably good within the ecosystem they evolved in because natural predators kept their numbers in check.
I was interested to see in one of The Fat Bee Man’s videos (I think it was him), that he doesn’t treat for fire ants near his beehives because he believes that the fire ants eat the beetle larvae as they try to bury in the ground. I’m not sure if that works because beetle larvae mostly exit the hive during the night. It would work if fire ants are nighttime feeders, or if they dig down 4 inches for prey.
Just an update: It appears that this Flow hive owner, in his wisdom looks to be heading down the same track. All he wants to do after I sort his bees out is to harvest the honey once a month, like he used to do.
A positive update on the Flow frames after the slime-out.:
I might have mentioned that the owner also has 3 fake flows. They all have new colonies, so I waited for one to get bees working the fake frames. Consequently one colony was working the frames. So what I did was swap one fake for the single Flow that had been gernied twice. Yesterday while looking at one of the other 5, that had only been gernied once quite a few months ago, I observed all of the wax moth debris buildup, then spotted the end cap in place. After removing it, I noticed lots of krud in the channel. Then I realised the one in the hive would have been similar.
After cleaning the frame, channel & all, I went & swapped it for the one in the hive. It did have krud in the channel, as expected, however also it was delightful to see that after 4 days the bees were storing honey in it.
That was my concern: Will the bees use the Flow frames after a slime-out. Consequently they will. Admittedly it’s been quite a while with a great deal of wax moth activity during that time, which may have removed the slime that bees don’t like.
The client should be pleased to hear that they wont need discarding, OR 2 hours spent on each frame to pull apart, before cleaning each piece ready to reassemble.
1 Like
Hi Jack, hopefully tagging will get your attention. I have discovered, with time, an easy solution. After the initial water blasting, the flow frames sat in my honey room. During that time wax moth have been hard at work inside the combs, devouring everything. I gave one frame a second water blast 2 months ago & had it ready to place into a fake flow hive once the bees start working the frames. Over the last 2 months more wax moth debris built up in that frame, however last Tuesday I slipped it into a fake hive as intended, thinking the bees would clean the debris. I didn’t realize at the time that the channel also contained debris, so yesterday morning, (4 days later) I swapped the frame for another frame (clean channel & all) to discover that not only had the bees removed the wax moth debris, they must have resealed the wax & were storing honey in the frame.
Having said all that: there IS an easy solution which requires a bit of patience, as well as access to wax moths.
1 Like
wax moths eh? I’m not sure that would have worked for my frames- mine are just heavily propolised and waxed and moldy. Would wax moth really eat mold and a fine coating of wax? I can easily find a few moth and entomb them with the frames to see how they go at it…
Surprisingly yes. Just sit the frames in a dark corner where wax moths can find them, then forget about them for 6 months.
I might have mentioned earlier that some of the segments were stuck. Now they’re free to move. Wax moth larvae must have consumed whatever held them stuck.
The job came in late July. I think the wax moth larvae are still working on them, because it wouldn’t surprise me if I was to wash a frame now, if more debris built up going forward.
The frames still look dirty compared to new, however the mechanism works now & the bees are happy to use them.
The owner doesn’t know the good news because my swapping the frame too early in the morning yesterday met with a severe negative reaction, which has soured the relationship. Therefore he can find out another way. By the time I got back home at 6am, it was too hot to be in a bee suit, especially for a love job 
PS I have some photos of the wax moth larvae hard at work.
The first photo shows the wax moth debris.
We took this second photo to show how nicely the plastic is cleaning up.
This third photo shows what’s inside the channel & what I wanted to avoid mixing in the clients honey if & when he harvests from it.
cheers
Another job came in this morning. This time I have to harvest all the honey for the lady, for a fee that Wilma quoted. After that, the bees & hives are mine - apparently. We’ll see about that because the lady might have spoke too soon, in the absence of her husband. Maybe the bees will be mine because they’re real cranky & stinging everyone.
This all started about 4 years ago. I created a thread that got closed & merged into another thread. The people started off with bees in their wall, so they got me to transfer the bees from their wall to their fake Flow brood box. I don’t know what happened to the fake Flow frames. My last visit, maybe 2 years ago was to harvest honey out of the roofs for the lady before Christmas. The frames were chock-a-block full of honey & the population was over crowded in two hives containing 1 brood & 1 honey super.
I’ll go there first thing in the morning to make a start & try to do something without upsetting too many bees. Luckily it’s not far away. I might have to do the job in small stages.
The lady did say that the hives had been neglected on account of her husband’s busy work schedule. I look forward to the challenge 
1 Like
I only did one hive, on account of drizzling rain. The bees weren’t all that bad, considering the rain etc. They kept chasing the lady, which surprised me. I remembered that they had a fake Flow, but forgot about the bamboo QE that came with it, as well as the brood box with those little opening doors at the entrance.
Well, after 4 years I can give an opinion on the bamboo QEs, as well as the little doors at the entrance. The little doors at the entrance were half chewed out, which renders them useless as an entrance closer. In regards to the bamboo QE, these photos will tell the story:
Needless to say, there was brood in the honey super.
2 Likes
I did the second hive this afternoon, between showers. It had a badly warped plastic QE. Would anyone believe that he tried to fit 11 plastic frames into the 10 frame honey super? He had 9 frames in the brood box. Going by the look of it, it hadn’t been touched for a long time. Regardless of that, it still had a very strong population.
1 Like
I have another update: I finished up extracting 33 kilos of beautiful honey for the lady. I finished up scraping most of the comb out of the plastic frames, on account that a lot of jellybush, as well as thick honey remained in the comb, that wasn’t very deep anyway. Plus I wanted the lady to get her money’s worth.
I got into the brood boxes today, on account that I removed a brood frame from the middle of each hive to place in brood boxes to catch the bees from the honey supers. Both those frames were quite respectable, considering. This morning I got in to both brood boxes & was shocked at the condition of a lot of the frames. I brought them home to photograph for keepsake & also to share on here.
2 Likes
Hey Jeff, when was the last time you did an inspection ?
Hi George, the hive wasn’t mine to inspect. You can follow this story which started 3 days ago. I originally helped the owners to get bees from out of their wall cavity & into their fake Flow hive. The brood frames in the photos are a result of the cut-out comb fitted into empty frames. I’m sure Wilma & I drove the message home (or we tried to) that the cut-out comb in empty frames was a temporary measure to get the colony into the box, & not to be kept in the brood box indefinitely.
The lady got into a panic because the 6yo boy next door kept getting stung & didn’t want their 1yo to get stung as well. Plus others, including the lady kept getting stung also. She just wanted the bees GONE.
1 Like
Hi @JeffH sorry mate, I’m a bit behind the times. I should have known that you would never let a hive get to that state. I will read up the rest. Cheers
1 Like
The job completed after dark last night with the removal of the nuc to catch the stragglers, plus any bees that may have returned, on account of the short distance to where I located the bulk of the bees.
In order to eliminate any bees returning, I decided to take the nuc to my second bee site, where I caught 2 cane toads & missed a third one during my last inspection. I thought, “why not kill 2 birds with one stone”. So we went prepared & caught 29. We only had 2 10 liter buckets, instead of a 20 liter bucket with a 10 liter bucket to hold them down. It became difficult to put toads into a 10 liter bucket without other ones jumping out. I’ll be better prepared next time.
2 Likes