Looking for advice. I had decided to leave the Flow frames on for winter feed as I emptied all but 2 frames. Temps are down to zero at night, and high teens in the day. Then somewhere around here (the Pilliga) something is flowering and so my girls have filled all the empty frames again and …more. They are now adding cells on top of full Flow cells…they are not building cells in the roof cavity.
I harvested a frame to give them more space…but is that enough? (they are still at work on the new cell walls). Anyone else seen this behaviour? It’s too cold to put another brood box on.
Question: I’m guessing your in the Southern Hemisphere. Are you running a double deep 8 frame like most of us Northern hemisphere folks are ?! Sounds like your chilly Wx would have been a wise candidate if not.
If you are going to have to leave the Flow-Super on for food storage I’d remove the Q.E. forsure so your queen doesn’t get left on the wrong side of the excluder fence !
A pix or two would be helpful telling you much n your minimum profile is not very helpful n giving your location or other valuable info to accurately give you the best help.
Good luck bro. Watch your Girls Careful this winter so the have enough to survive.
Gerald
P.S. I personally wouldn’t n dont leave my honey extra honey supers or Flow-supers on. But not sure you have an option this late in your autumn down there with the dip in temps now.
Looks like Coonabarabran has average max temps of around 15 in winter and as you say you are getting high teens (a bit of el nino this year) so the bees will be out foraging most days. Are there winter flowering eucalypts there @Allison ? I guess you could just let them store more and see how things go. There must be something nice and nectary around in your area given your success with honey making in your hive. My bees here in Tassie are flying in low numbers from the hives even with a light frost on the ground and the air temp of 4 degrees celsius…we are well into winter in Tasmania.
