I am a new bee keeper that bought a nucleus hive that’s been building foundation less for a few months now in Placerville CA. They have 6 frames partially drawn out. I noticed that they were moving around the level area around the bottom of my flow hive 2 but didn’t want to disturb them. Today after inspecting my brood box tray I found lots of honey comb and bees at the bottom inside the tray! I’m worried and concerned about whether I should attempt to remove all this comb and honey or just leave the bees alone so they can establish themself. I put it back in right away because it was a bit sticky and I didn’t want to spill honey or possibly hurt the queen.
Hi, welcome to the forum. If you could share a picture of what you are seeing that would be very helpful. Are you seeing honeycomb attached below the removable frame or is under the entire hive attached to the sliding tray? I just want to make sure I understand what you are seeing better. In both cases you should be scraping that comb off. How many frames is your flow hive two; 8 or 10? If its 8 frames I would be tempted to put the honey super on top now. If you have already done that are the bees up in the honey super- are they storing nectar up there?
How often are you inspecting?
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That’s about as far as I can pull it out, it got really stuck. I didn’t want to force. I’ve been doing my hive inspection every 2 weeks or so but have ignored the bottom tray. It’s an 8 frame cedar flow hive 2
And I haven’t yet put on my super haha
Hey Nicolas,
I suggest you pull the slide out, might take a bit of force. Shake the bees off, scrape the comb off and rinse any honey off. Store the comb for rubbing onto your Flow frames. You don’t want bees down there and It should be reasonably bee proof. Find where they’re getting in and close the gap.
All part of the fun.
Cheers,
Mike
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The bees actually shouldn’t be able to get into the tray area at all let alone making comb there. You need to fix that problem by working out how the bees can get into the tray, look for the wire mesh maybe buckled around the edge giving a bee gap. I figure you will see the problem there.
You need to convince the tray to come out and clean it up free of wax, and of course any honey. get that area including under the mesh by scraping off any comb hanging from there back to as it was before you put the bees in the hive.
You can use that bur comb in rubbing it over the flow frames to lure the bees into working on the super and maybe the comb building out of the brood box frames is a loud and clear message that they need the super putting on the hive with the QX of course.
But first problem first and that needs fixing before it gets worse which will happen if you ignore it.
Inspecting every two weeks is good but check the tray when you do an inspection as it is a part of good hive management.
If your not sure of the purpose of the tray then ask, we are all here to help with answers, advice and tips.
Cheers
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Somethings up with your mesh floor Nicolas (is it in?) bees shouldn’t be able to get into the inspection tray.
I would break down the hive to fully inspect all lower parts and give them all a good clean up. If bees are getting into that area then pests will be getting into the hive possibly also.
Thanks for sharing never seen this issue with a FlowHive2 before.
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Thanks for all the advice guys I ended up pulling the tray out and putting some of the comb into the super trays. I put the super on after. The surgery was a bit tedious but my plan is to now routinely clean the tray out in order to not have them leaving comb down there. They were going in through the landing pad they were squeezing under and over… I thought the design was to have the mesh tray somewhat in the middle though so other bugs cannot just jump in the hive.
It started mostly lower but my bees are so robust they must’ve pushed it up over time
There’s tons of bees underneath now as well though so I can’t trap them in 
You have to close the way the bees are getting into the tray area Nicolas. Otherwise the problem will only get worse and demand more of your time.
Cheers
I’m thinking that I can push down the metal tray and try my best to secure it so it won’t move and then slowly rescue the bees by letting them escape to the back
That doesn’t look installed correctly, the metal should be flush with the landing board.
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I think your mesh is on upside down or around the wrong way.
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Tim is right, the metal strip sits on the same level as the landing board as an continuance to the landing board, not as a roof for the bees to walk under. So there is the way the bees are getting into the tray area. Re-read the assembly instructions mate. Wrong assembly and not muscle bound robust bees at fault 
Cheers
Your screen is upside down, flip it so the front is bent downwards and looks like a little metal ramp at the front 
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