Thanks for info from you all, flow manufacturers instructions are a bit vague, they say they run hives with no excluders with no trouble but they then recommend excluders! Any updates from Cedar on this?
Hi Gill,
I have personally seen 2 Flow hives with brood in the Flow frames (mostly drone brood) and wouldnât recommend it. Itâs a mess that will require you to unwire the frames and scrub out the cocoons of each segment with a stiff brush. I am sure we all have better things to do with our time.
The way to avoid brood in the Flow super without an excluder, is the same way as with a traditional super. The queen wonât cross a significant honey barrier so you have a traditional super underneath, paying attention to making sure she doesnât use it to lay in
I had the âfunâ of extracting drone brood with a tweezers past Spring; I highly recommend avoiding this experience
Thanks for that DeeâŚcommonsense really! Thanks for your input Tracey. Did you have one brood box or two?
Two: we had one deep and one medium.
Oh dear! I have two deepsâŚperhaps I better order some metal queen excluders! Thanks for your help.
An alternative would be to wear a bee suit while whipper snipping in that area.
Whipper Snipper ⌠I love that
Much more catchy than Strimmer or Weed Whacker.
I had to look it up tooâŚI thought it might be a kind of Aussie dance move
I have been using the excluder until now and noticed this:
A) after 1/2 year of use, the bees have closed most of the cells in the Flow Frames
B) No honey was ever stored in the Flow Frames.
C) Bees seem to use the divider to build other burr-comb and have closed several rows of the divider holes.
I have the feeling the divider hinders the bees to go through and deposit their nectar.
Therefore and after reading many of the comments below I think I might give it a try and take the divider out.
I hope that will trigger the bees to finally start using the Flow Frames.
Rob , Thailand
When you say divider, do you mean the queen excluder or the inner cover?
Yes, sorry for the confusing use of words, the queen excluder.
Hi Rob,
A. Just to confirm when you say that the bees have âclosed most of the cellsâ, have they capped the cells with wax and the cells are empty? I have never heard of this happening before, do you have some photos to share?
Also, your bees are Apis Mellifera right?
C. This is normal, and the wax or propolis can be scraped off with your tool, another way is to remove from the hive and clean with boiling water.
I would not advise anyone to put their Flow super on without a queen excluder in place, I have seen too often that the queen moves up and lays brood in the Flow cells⌠a nightmare to clean.
If you bees are not moving up to deposit nectar in the frames, then there could be a number of reasons, typically there is just not enough nectar coming into the hive to store up in the super. Bees need to consume nectar and honey to survive and at certain times of the year they consume what they bring in, in some areas this may be all year round.
If other colonies in your area are doing very well and lots of nectar stored then consider changing your bees out and replacing with another colony⌠or re-queen with a known highly productive strain. Queen breeders will tell you their genetic traits if you ask⌠cheers
Hi Rodderick,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I live in Bangkok, outside the city center with plenty of gardens and trees around, but few agriculture. Though the trees are green all year around and it is basically always warm, I have the feeling that there are not many flowering bushes and trees or crops nearby. So I see them bringing in pollen and nectar, the frames in the lower box are now starting to fill up and in fact I have taken out 1 normal wooden frame with partly capped honey storage and that was quite full. The honey taste a bit like the mango fruit trees that we have everywhere. I got about 2,5 liters of honey out of that!
My bees are indeed European bees, so Apis Mellifera, though I am not 100% sure. I got them from a beekeeper shop from the countryside and they came in a simple single box, as is the usual way they have bees here in Thailand. In general the Thai beekeepers do not seem to wait until the cells are capped but empty them quite quickly with a centrifuge and then put them back in the hive.
I am not in a rush and therefore I just let it go.
The Flow frames are now prepared by the bees, so in most cells they closed the gaps between the plastic segments. They are now in the hive since July 2017 and I have also been feeding them sugarcane syrup regularly, but besides reasonable storage in the lower frames, nothing in the Flow framesâŚ
I guess I have to have more patienceâŚ
Hi Rob,
I saw your location and was asking about mellifera as I know that Apis Cerana is also used up your way, however they donât produce that much honey which could explain a few things, but you would need to ask an experienced beekeeper as the telling them apart is not obvious.
If you are feeding your bees sugar solution, thats fine but I think it is unnecessary. Any honey produced in the frames will be from the cane sugar and not nectar from flowers.
I am in a totally different climate and region/country to you but as a rule I donât feed, not even the young swarms or colonies. They seem healthier when they forage for their own nectar, it builds stronger bees in general. Though if at risk of starving then you better feed.
Give it some time, if they are filling the gaps then this is a good sign, they are prepping the super. Another tip is manipulate the frames in your brood box to maximise potential for the queen to lay eggs, in my case I remove their excess honey stores (this does require some knowledge on the nectar flow of the vegetation in your area). You want that brood box to be brimming with bees and larva from edge to edge, meaning when you pull up brood frames they should be covered with bees. Good luck.
Thanks for the useful tips. I do see your point for not feeding the bees, basically there is hardly any need for it in a country like Thailand, it is always warm and at least some flowers all year around.
These last 3 days are the exception, it is now âwinterâ in Thailand and in Bangkok it can get down to a âchillyâ 22 degrees on the day or even as low as 16-17 degrees early morning⌠hard times , the bees are suddenly not outside bearding as they normally do, but all inside and shiveringâŚ
When it is a bit warmer again I will look at their honey storage and perhaps take some out, so they can draw new comb.
Here are some pictures from one of the last inspections, I these bees are definitely not the Apis Cerana, when comparing them to stock images (Thanks Google)
I found the queen as well, that time!
Here it is clearly visible how they make cells between the queen extruder and the frames. occasionally there is an empty queen-cell but they have not shown any swarming behavior in the last 1/2 year.
With the last check I took out 1 honey frame and placed an empty frame back, with the wooden ridge. I suspect they will quickly start building from that ridge, as they did in the very beginning.
Are you messing with us? Thatâs not niceâŚ
That little bit of comb between the frames is nothing to worry about but I would just slice it off with the hive tool to tidy it up. There is not a large amount of bees, I would keep an eye on them. I donât see much brood or honey/pollen stores on the frame in the picture (looks a bit empty of young), are the other frames looking better? Do you see eggs, larva and capped brood on the other frames?
Sorry if I made fun of the temperature⌠But it is quite interesting to see people dressed in sweaters, winter coats when it is close to 20 degrees in Bangkok. Even for me, a Dutchman, after 15 years in Thailand I experience anything lower than 25 Celsius as cold!
Other frames show larvae, capped brood and I have seen eggs as well. But I will check if there is a decrease in the population or not.