I am in central Victoria. Condensation can be seen through the window. I think this might be the reason the bees are not moving up into the flow box. Any ideas
Condensation shouldn’t be an issue if you leave out the coreflute.
Your bees not moving up to the flow frames because they are not ready for it, due to lack of population or you added the flow super too early or the nectar flow is not on.
I am in Melbourne surburbia and my flow super been filling fast in the last 3 weeks, probably 50% at least … And my backyard smells like a lolly factory this afternoon.
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Hello Graeme, I would leave the corflute in the top slot position, the condensation is from the difference of the internal temperature and the ambient temperature outside the hive and from the humidity in the air. The window clouding up is not an indicator for the rest of the Super. As your temperature get warmer the condensation will disappear.
I did some experiments when I added my 2 Flow Supers and got the best results to get the bees into using the flow frames by using a daggy cheap paint brush and ‘painting on’ melted bees wax over all of the frames and all of the cells, if you do that and the bees have an excess of honey to be stored and they have no room in the brood box for it they will work on sealing the flow cells and begin storing it there.
Welcome to the forum, there is lots of reading and help here.
Regards
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It’s the opposite- you get condensation on the windows because the bees aren’t up there yet. Once they are and the nights are warmer you won’t see it anymore. They’ll go when they are ready and have honey to store. As Peter said adding wax can help but we’ve found they’ll also get in there regardless if they are good and ready
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Hi Graeme,
Whats your bee population like? With a strong colony able to expand, you would want the brood box to be overflowing, thick carpet on top of the timber frames. It might be that they have brought a good amount of nectar into the brood box and have been fanning this off. With the moisture settling in the Flow Super, it may just be settling on the internal side panels. However it would be good to check the Flow Frames, if they have droplets on them, it might be a bit of a deterrent. opening the hive, (with a bee suit and smoker), would be a really good release of humidity within the hive too. –Kieran (Flow Team)