Crikey Pete, that’s a lot of work in just 5 days. 
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I was actually talking about my climatic Spring mate, this year it started on July 7th and I’m already making 2nd splits of some of the hives. By the calendar we are on the 5th day of Spring but I’m already getting 32C the past couple of days so it is December weather, but sadly we really need rain badly. Heaps of pollen but the bees are only holding their own for nectar.
Cheers
Hi Pete, we had 34 yesterday & 32 today.
I might have found another smoker fuel (sorry for going off topic), as well as an old bee hive in that cut-out the other day, there was the remains of a rats nest. There was plenty of macadamia shells in amongst the old comb. Plus bits of half rotten wood that I fished out of the slumgum. I put that aside to use in the smoker. I’ll see how the macadamia shells go.
cheers
Thanks for the tip Jeff, I’ll be in touch soon for another nuc to make a hive I have an order for. I have another fruit and veg shop buying my honey so need all my hives for honey production.
I thought about noon today was warmer than yesterday, a bit hot for the first few days of the calendar Spring, more like December weather. Wattle is flowering heavy but the hives are not producing much in nectar. We could do with some rain mate, even the lawn has browned off. Saves on mower fuel 
Cheers
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I feel bad Pete, I remember saying to someone “I’m over this rain”, during that last long period of rain we had.
I’ll try those macadamia shells out this morning. I’m sure they’ll burn well, being coated in slumgum. I’ve been using some dry cow manure lately. Apparently it smells like marijuana smoke. Now I know what marijuana smoke smells like.
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Hmmmm. I have never smoked the stuff, as I have asthma and any smoke makes me cough dramatically. However, I live next to a huge suburb (Ocean Beach or OB) which has been famous for years for having marijuana dispensaries. I doubt that cow manure smells quite the same, but I haven’t tried burning it. 
Marijuana smoke on the streets of OB smells aromatic and sweet. Almost floral. It also lingers on the air - I have never observed anyone smoking it, just detected it from a distance. It doesn’t smell as obnoxious as cigarette smoke, which immediately makes me sneeze and wheeze.
I think I will stick with hessian/burlap in my bee smoker. My bees have enough neurological problems with insecticides, without adding drugs to the mix! 
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A father & son picked up a colony recently while I had cow manure burning in my smoker. They both knew a bit about marijuana smoke apparently. They reckoned that the cow dung smoke smelt similar, after I suggested that I’d been previously told it smelt similar.
Plenty of deckhands smoked it on my boat after I went to bed, however they probably smoked it so the breeze blew the smoke away. They thought I didn’t know what was going on. Someone told me I’d know the smell because it smelt like burning cow manure.
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Hey there 
following this stream and saw you at the end. It has been Hot here 90 F and caught a swarm a couple days ago in a tree next to my hives and it may be part of my Flow Hive. I gather that happens have to figure that out There are a lot less bees in that hive and only a few in the flow. Doing some studying and will inspect it good tomorrow. There were a lot of bees in the flow for the past month the number had been growing. My other hive also looking like is is wanting to swarm also, pulled a few frames of honey from it yesterday to open it up a bit and saw little Queen cups already open. I got some good printouts above in this feed to read will see what I have tomorrow but they are flying around like they want to. I did get a gallon of honey. Cheers
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It seems a healthy hive will make queen cells as a standby, they are often left unused. I used to knock them down to find the bees have remade them so now I leave them there and just keep an eye on them if they get used. Then when the queen cell is capped I carefully cut it out and make a split adding the queen cell to a couple of frames of brood and stores.
I guess with a similar climate to here you can get a swarm from a hive at almost any time and not just in Spring but Spring is a high swarm period. For that reason I do hive checks about every 10 days over that period and mainly looking for signs that the hive is building into a swarm situation and do a split rather than chasing a swarm of my own bees. where my apiary is if a hive swarmed the bush is so dense the chances are I wouldn’t find it.
Looking forward to another update from you, cheers 
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The reading in the posts above very helpful. I am now studying splits. Although I need more boxes now. I am less worried now with 3 hives. I am working on this flow the bees up there not doing anything as I pull honey from my regular hive. I am going to keep it simple not ready to manipulate supers, and brood above super. Next step I was not even ready for and here is the honey. I will hang with the flow but when I invested in it I had no plans to buy an extractor but there is no way I can get around it. The honey is not being made in my flow at this time. I do think we have similar climate and learning the seasons as they relate to bees. Have a good day. Cheers to you also
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Just take it easy with what you are confident in doing and anything that needs doing and new to you we are here to guide you through the process till you have a mental picture about doing a new job in the hive.
Splits are fairly easy to do and there is no need to know where the queen is providing you have eggs and young larvae in both of the splits, the queen-less split will make a new queen.
Cheers
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It’s amazing how your hive numbers grow. I started out with one Flow from the beginning. Then I realised from lots of reading etc that two hives are better than one. Ok. So then that progressed to three. After a few springs and swarm captures I said I’m limiting the numbers to 10. This Spring I now have 16! Not all with bees but currently doing splits. I’m now telling myself (quitely) that I’ll limit to 20. I love my surfing and surf whenever I get the chance but as I was heading up the coast to a mates place to build more hives, I stopped and looked at some beautiful perfect waves, and thought to myself ‘What am I doing?’ I’ve got to get more time savvy like JeffH.
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i have had 2 brood boxes full of bees and last month i put the queen excluder and the flow hive box on top to start collecting honey. However the bees refuse to go into the flow hive and have now swarmed on a nearby plum tree.
This is a common problem with adding an excluder with anything the bees will hesitate to use. Between crossing the excluder and using bare foundation (or a flow hive super) they just refuse. I would not add the excluder UNTIL they are using the flow frames. Then make sure the queen is below and put the excluder on if you like. Personally I find that with natural comb in the brood nest the queen seems satisfied not to move up into the supers because there is enough drone comb for her. If there is not enough drone comb in the brood nest, sometimes she will seek it elsewhere and move up into the supers. I run all of my flow hive supers without excluders.
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That’s very interesting. I will remember that strategy if I encounter a colony refusing to move upstairs. Thanks Michael.
Hi Michael, I remember you mentioning this in the past. Now that I have a bit more understanding of things, I’m wondering if the reason this works is because you have a double brood setup, plus maybe a super and THEN the Flow super? So that there’s enough room for the queen to lay plus a honey barrier…I would love to ditch the QX myself - each season I’ve been able to use the FS it seems to serve as an extra-strong matrix for the bees to glue the super onto the top of the brood box and I’m forced to remove Flow frames to get it loose!
An additional upper entrance sort of allows the workers to ditch the QX if they wish.
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Hi Eva, the reason why no QX works for Michael is because he’s using foundationless frames in the brood boxes. That allows the bees to make the number of drones they require in the double brood boxes. That eliminates the need for the bees to want the queen to lay in the flow frames.
I have never seen bees refuse to use a QX. The best way to get bees to use it is to move two frames of brood above it at the time when we think the colony is about ready for a honey super to go on top. It’s a good way to cycle out any of the brood frames that aren’t up to scratch.
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I read Michael Bush entry on both no Qx to start with and that he has a top opening.
Is this normal in California. Is it climate determined. Or is this a standard operating procedure for the flow hive system.
Top entry points are used in U.K. in hives with multiples of honey supers as in 4 or so. But not with only 1 or 2. (The exception being a bailey comb change I suppose but that’s a red herring)
My note book is stood by and my pencil dharpened.
The main thing is enough drone comb in the brood nest. Enough room for the queen to lay is also helpful. Usually when a queen goes up into the supers to lay it’s a lack of drone comb that is the issue.
Foundationless is not “normal” for California or anywhere else that I am aware of. However, it is the preference of @Michael_Bush in the northern US and @Girl_Next_Door_Honey in southern California. Upper entrance and no queen excluder is also not a climate thing, it is a beekeeper thing. 
I use upper and lower entrances, queen excluders and some foundation plus some foundation less frames. So I am all mixed up! 
However, I like too experiment, and speak from personal experience whenever possible.
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