This is my second year keeping. I am in the midwest US. I am running two deeps. My hives are healthy state inspected. I did a spring split of my original hive and started a second Flow hive. Both hive swarmed rather than use the Flow super. We collected the swarms . We now have a third hive and resource boxes full of bees. We have sold a few nucs. We are still struggling to our bees in three hives to go into Flow supers. I have waxed frames, mixed in regular wood frames with nectar\honey, applied burr comb from their hive. The supers were removed after swarming and put back on after hives were built back up. We have learned a ton but would like to harvest some honey someday.
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Hi Betty, nice work dealing with swarms and building a healthy apiary! But about honey production, I feel ya - it took me a few seasons to be able to harvest from my lovely Flow frames too.
I wondered, are you seeing bees up in the supers at all? If so, they’re probably waxing up all the seams 
This has to get done before they can start storing nectar in there. They also need to lengthen all the cells and finish them smoothly so they can be capped eventually. All of that takes awhile which is why most new colonies don’t manage to put much in there.
With the swarming and splitting you had to do I’d consider your colonies ‘new’, & more focused on rebuilding populations after a new queen is mated. By the time the worker population rebounded, it may be that the nectar flow was starting to taper off in your area and/or hot dry weather made it less abundant.
The good news is that since you’ve had the super on, it’s very likely that the bees have made some headway on all the wax prep and the frames will be ready to go onto your strongest overwintered colony in spring 2025!
I hope that all makes sense 
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There are some bees in the Flow super but nothing like you see on Flow videos. They are working on seams but it seams slow. Two hives have two completely full deeps and yet the Flow super has not a lot bees working the frames. We are at the height of honey flow.
When did you put the Flow super on, and were both brood boxes bursting with bees, brood and fully drawn comb before you did so? Just curious 
Yes. The first hive was full and fully drawn. Supered. The early April split was put in the new hive built up to bursting also. Then supered. Both hives swarmed. They threw off secondary swarms also. I have used the swarms in resource hives to rebuild the brood boxes in all three hives to strong hives.
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What month did you put the Flow super on? Still curious 
I put them on in July not all at once. I just put the last on.
I think that’s the problem, Betty. July in many parts of the US tends to be a time of nectar dearth or getting close to it. I know you said it’s peak flow now, though, so I think if there is nectar out there your bees are using it to feed brood and wax the Flow frames.
Which is all good! I would suggest leaving the super on but keeping a close eye on the frames and removing the super before the bees switch over to propolizing instead of waxing them up. Just curious - have you lifted out a center frame to see if they maybe made more progress than you can see thru the windows?
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I supered when traditional keepers were supering in my area. They are now starting to harvest.
Very interesting. I usually super in Spring. By July, I am taking my supers off. That was also true in the UK, which has a different climate from SoCal. Might it be worth you trying supering in April or early May next year, depending on the state of your brood boxes, of course? 
Hi Betty, I think a great way to get bees up into the Flow supers is to remove the middle 2 or 3 Flow frames, & replace them with brood frames, while opening up the brood as a swarm prevention method. Move the remaining Flow frames towards the brood frames, creating gaps on the sides, which is only temporary, until the brood has emerged & replaced with honey. By the time the brood frames are full of sealed honey, the bees would have commenced working the adjacent Flow frames. I suggested this technique to @Bean19 & others, with positive results.
Last time I spoke with Bean (Anita), she was still using & loving this technique, as well as her Flow hive.
Adding another super as a swarm prevention method doesn’t always work. We need to open the brood up, as @Michael_Bush would say.
When splitting to prevent swarming, I like to remove the sealed brood, which takes away the population growth in the immediate future, & buys a bit more time.
It’s worth bearing in mind that swarming is how bees reproduce. Sometimes the desire to reproduce can be extremely overwhelming, especially when the conditions are ideal.
So do you put these brood frames above queen excluder?
Yes, above the QE, in the center. The QE is the reason why the brood emerges before it’s replaced with honey. Unless the bees that emerge are needed down below, they will stay in the Flow super and start storing honey up there, provided it’s coming in.
I guess you don’t really have to wait until the frames are full of capped honey, you can remove them after the bees have emerged, and you can see them working the Flow frames. Remove them to use elsewhere.
PS, I did this the other day. I supered a strong brood box. I removed 4 brood frames to place above the QE in the center. Then I put the other 5 brood frames in the center of the brood box, flanked by fully drawn frames on the sides.
Thanks Jeff,
Worked like a charm in on hive. Still tinkering with the other two but at least their waxing frames now. Hopefully next year all three will be ready to roll. Extremely close to first harvest!
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