My frames have never been irradiated, and were removed last autumn when I packed the hive down for the winter. Now we’ve had to take all the honey out from the hives so our bees could be euthanised (we’re unfortunate enough to fall into the red zone of the DPI’s efforts to eradicate varroa in NSW - we didn’t have varroa, just live in the wrong spot). It sucks, but we hadn’t put the flow frames back into the hive yet for the summer, so they were safe. But we can’t keep bees for a few years, and so I had started to clean the wax and propolis off the frames (with hot water - no cleaning chemicals) like the DPI instructed us to.
The frames were removed, emptied of honey and were in the process of being cleaned but to my horror, when I tried to use two frame keys to close the cells (gradually a few sections at a time) there was a sickening crack and the tops of the cells completely split. I was doing this with them sitting in their original cedar boxes (which as a side note, have also been disappointingly poor durability-wise) and the frames have all been used, emptied & cleaned the same way, but half the frames in each box (2 out of 4 in each - I have two hybrid model boxes) are now non-functional. When off the hives, they’ve been stored indoors, in sealed containers while I processed my other timber frames, and I am completely bewildered why this would happen!
Is this a known issue?? I’ve been using flow hives for a little while and never seen anything like this before! It seemed to bizarrely brittle to crack like that!
Hi Amy, Merry Christmas & I’m sorry to hear of your unfortunate circumstance.
Re “Has anyone else had this happen?”. Yes, as you know @akthommo , however there was a happy ending for him. He lives in my area, now & again we catch up to compare notes. He was really pleased with how Flow resolved his issue.
Your question might have meant folks who didn’t get their frames irradiated. Up until now, you’re the only case that I’ve heard of, where the frames cracked without first being irradiated.
I’ve had plastic objects that get brittle over time without being in the sun, plastic buckets for example. Some plastics do better than others.
I would suggest that you e-mail your question and a photo to info@honeyflow.com. They are very helpful and will try to work through the problem with you. Make sure that you check your Junk/Spam folder intermittently, if they don’t seem to be responding. Some e-mail programs seem to think that they are spammers!
One question I have. Did the frames ever sit uncovered and exposed to direct sunlight? UV can make the Flow frames brittle.
One other question, how hot was the hot water? Flow frames can withstand up to 70°C, but not above that.
I’m not sure what you mean with the buckets? We live on a farm and have definitely seen outdoor plastic in the sun deteriorate from UV damage, but not indoors plastic (like plastic food containers etc) which usually lasts many years without issues. Given that Flow frames are made from a food-safe plastic and stored in a similar manner (sheltered, out of direct sun, moderated temperature), I was expecting a similar performance from them.
Thanks Dawn, I’ll follow up with Flow Hive and see what they say.
No, I can’t think of a time when there were in exposed sunlight, other than briefly during inspections.
I didn’t have a thermometer in the water, but I’m pretty sure modern hot water systems in Australia are regulated to 60deg, so I wouldn’t expect that it had been over 70? That’s good to know though.
