I have this morning observed a common house fly entering my hive and I am wondering if this is something to be concerned about. The bees did not seem to worried by its presence. I am due to inspect the hive this afternoon and am wondering if there is something I should be specifically looking out for following this observation. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks Paul
Are you sure it was a house fly? They don’t normally go for honey-based products. Could it have been a native bee?
Definitely a house fly. If there is one thing Australians know it is flies.
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LOL, reminds me of Crocodile Dundee - a knife? That’s not a knife! This is a knife!!!
We do insects really well in our warm humid climates - flies are so EWWWWWWW! 
Be careful it doesn’t eat all your honey 
oooh, i havent heard about that, but if i was going to look, i would be looking for maggots as well as wax moth larvae. maybe the flies are attracted to dead bees at the bottom board or dead larvae in the brood?
This is my post from my other thread and I am not really concerned about the lies following the inspection today.
Inspected the hive this afternoon and couldn’t be more pleased with the progress the bees have made in such a short time. Seven days ago frames 1, 7 & 8 had no comb on them at all. Now all frames are on their way. There is capped brood on frames 3 through 6 and the Queen who has been named Imelda was on frame 2 which I assume means she is laying eggs on that frame. Below I have added photos of each frame. I counted 4 SHB of which I was able to kill 3 of them. Note I didn’t see any evidence of the flies. There were a couple of dead bees at the bottom of the hive so maybe that is what they were after.
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Frame 1
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Frame 2 with Imelda in shot.
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Frame 3
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Frame 4
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Frame 5
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Frame 6
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Frame 7
IMG_1439.JPG3225x2419 2.56 MB
Frame 8
Based on their rate of drawing the comb on the frames I am thinking that in another 7 days they will have most of the frames drawn and then a further 7 days should see a good covering of bees on all frames. A week ago they had drawn about 35% of the frames. My calculations are that today the frames are about 55% drawn. If this is the case I am thinking I should be able to add my flow super in two weeks time. I would appreciate advice on whether this is a good plan/timeframe or not. I am obviously very keen to get the super on but am also conscious of the dangers of putting it on too soon. I am pretty sure there is going to be plenty for the bees to forage right through autumn and winter.
Were they on the small side? If so they would have been what we call hive flies, they seem to turn up to open hives but not do any damage. We also get native bees hooking in for a free feed when our hives are open.
Cheers
Rob.
They need the flow super on when they have no room to put stores in the brood box. Otherwise you are giving them lots of headroom to heat and they won’t go up into the super to wax it let alone put nectar in it. A general rule is to super when you have all but three or so frames FULL of brood.
I see you are in OZ. It might be worth asking around to see if fellow beekeepers are running two brood boxes. In which case you have a while to go before you can get those frames on.
No Rob, it was definitely a common house fly. I think everything is ok I was just worried that there was something wrong in the hive that was attracting it. The hive wasn’t open at the time. It went in through the hive entrance. There didn’t appear to be any when I opened the hive later in the day. All good I think.
Thanks Dee, I will do some more investigation but I believe I should be good with a single brood box. Would be interested in @JeffH thoughts on single or double brood box for SE Qld.
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Hi Paul, I find that one brood box is sufficient for me, even with an 8 frame brood box.
Thanks Jeff, It was what I was thinking as well. I am going to upload a video from the inspection I did yesterday. All going well at this point.
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Well done Paul, that’s fantastic.
I have seen house flies out side my hive pretty much since I got my bees 3 weeks ago the bees chase them off sometimes but today I saw the flies licking the bees feet. 
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