Brood in the Flow frame

Flow Hive
1

I made a mistake and accidentally let the queen get out of the brood box above the queen excluder (without knowing). I now have discovered some capped brood in about 30% of two of my Flow frames. I have found the queen and transferred her back into the brood box below the queen excluder. Will the bees clean the Flow frames and start producing honey again, or should I clean the Flow frames in some way?

2

You may not have made a mistake at all because a QE is no guarantee that the queen will remain in the brood box. Plastic QEs can warp as well as crack before the crack opens up, which can allow the queen access into the honey super. I have found 2 queens above metal QEs in recent weeks.

The only thing I would suggest is to not harvest honey from those frames until after the brood has emerged & the bees have replaced it with honey.

The only thing to worry about is if the queen did find a gap the first time, if she finds it again.

Whenever I find a queen above a QE, I always swap the QE for a good one, before bringing it home to find & block the gap. I always find a gap to block.

3

Jeff,

Thanks so much for that reply. I have a metal Queen excluder and while I checked it for distortion or bending, I was not as diligent as you suggested. I’ll be opening the hive again next weekend, so will check the QE more closely. And I guess I’ll just wait until the flow frames clear up. And I will certainly be checking closely for more evidence of her escaping again.

Cheers

Colin

4

You’re welcome Colin, I’m thinking that you don’t need reminding to always check the Flow frames before harvesting from them.
I observed first hand a hive beetle slime event because the owner harvested honey while brood was present in the frames.

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Those pearly white clusters in the second photo, I’m almost certain are hive beetle eggs. The wet appearance is caused by the beetles. They dip their body (which has an enzyme to quickly ferment honey) into honey before walking it everywhere, creating the wet appearance, which ferments, causing the colony to eventually abscond.