Ha, no argument here mate, just stating my view, looking for confirmation and yes, if the entrance is at the top in the super then it makes sense that is where the exchange would take place, is it beneficial? I wouldn’t have a clue. I know they move honey around the hive as its ripening do they ripen it anywhere specific before they fill and cap a cell?. Hey, I’m still learning and am keen to get as much information as I can into my noggin. I’m not set in my ways just yet and am willing to try anything which will move me forward. If putting an entrance above the qx works well I’ll give it a go with one of my colonies, heck only today I put a WSP (ideals aren’t done over here) over a qx instead of chucking on the Flow super like I had been planning and on top of the frames I put a Mercer mat!
I too find it an interesting point of discussion hence my input.
Yeah definitely interesting questions, I am seeing a fair bit of nectar being shuffled in and out of the outside frame on my Flow hive which something I have missed in my other hives without windows.
WSP…and Perth… That would explain why my bee mate from Perth is always telling me WSP is what everyone should be using for everything!
I don’t know the answer to that, my bees have had plenty of opportunities to use top entrances, however they always choose to use the bottom entrances. Sometimes multiple bottom entrances, when the bottom board gets a bit of dry rot on the back corner, for example. I have had lots of lids with dry rot holes, but they always fill them with propolis.
I agree that bees store honey in the brood chamber during the day & move it up at night, however I don’t believe it affects the flavor. It probably enhances the flavor if anything. I get no complaints about my honey.
I find that it takes time for the bees to start utilising the top entrances… one theory being that they seem to come up with an entrance preference early (in life?) and stick to it. I have seen similar when shutting down half the bottom entrance and then opening it up again… they still seem to preference the originally open side for a period of time before distributing across both (but this may also be because the entrance configuration has dictated the internal structure of the hive).
You’re spot on. I tried that out myself & came to the conclusion that whatever part of the entrance they depart from is the same position they return to. I think that is determined during the orientation flight. However they will drift across to one side or the other depending on certain factors as discussed on this forum recently.
I dropped one of my flow frames, early on and it all fell apart, but was very easy to reassemble, bit like lego, I think I would disassemble and put them in the dish washer to give them a nice sparking clean 
Just one caveat to that. Flow frame plastic doesn’t like temperatures higher than 70C. So don’t use the sterilize cycle of the dishwasher if it gets up to that temp (some do), and put them on the top rack to keep them away from any heating elements.
It looks like I may have a drone cell in one of my flow frames (bottom and left of center in the image below).
Will I need to disassemble the frame and clean it after I extract (and after the drone hatches)?
During my last inspection (3 days ago) I found a few more cells on another frame.
I am using the queen excluder that came with the Flow hive. I haven’t noticed this before during the last 12 months with the hive.
Cheers
Check the brood pattern below to make sure you have a queen, she’s laying worker brood and not all drone brood, and a good solid pattern. If you’re not sure, post a pic of some brood frames from below the excluder.
I wonder since the queen can’t go into the super and it’s absent of her pheromones, does an occasional laying worker develop. I think I read that the queens pheromones are what suppresses the workers ability to lay eggs. Laying workers can only produce drones. I’m not an expert though so I can only wonder.
Chances are that a worker has started laying above the QX. I get that on the odd occasion. It can happen even when the queen is happily laying below the QX. It just means that the colony (hives mind) wants to make more drones at this point in time. A good thing would be to inspect the frames before harvest because if there is one on the outside frame, there could be a lot more on the inside frames. If you do find them on inspection, you could flick them out of the frame before replacing into the super prior to harvesting the honey.
Fascinating discussion here folks.
Regarding the field bees passing stores onto interior workers… I think (just my observations) that the bees are travelling up and down the hive all the time. I say this because it only takes 24 hours to clear a honey super when I put on a bee escape. This tells me that all the bees are going down regularly. Presumably to do their business outside the hive!
I also have one hive that really hates going through the QX. It has been a problem for over a year. It is a really strong hive and should be filling the flow box, but they just don’t want to go up there! Plenty do, of course, but there should be thousands (like my other hives). I have tried top entrances, regular frames above QX etc. I’ve now got another queen and hoping that she has different DNA and smaller, or less resistant, offspring!
We had brood in our hybrid flow frames due to losing a new queen/laying worker issue. I ended up pulling out the drone larvae in early June with a needle-nose tweezers and rinsing out with warm blasts from hose. It was a tedious and yukky afternoon of effort, but worth it to not lose any more time.
