All the posts I have seen on this seem to be about the difficulty in opening or closing the flow frames.
I know things will tighten up after the bees do their thing but I have found opening and closing the frames to take almost no effort. There is only a slight tightness in inserting the flow key in top, if the frame is open and in the lower slot, if the frame is closed. Doubled checked the operation was being performed correctly. Worked perfectly.
Just very surprised it was so easy. Now I can’t wait to see how much effort is needed with a fully capped frame.
If it is ever not easy, just do a few at a time. In other words, insert the key only a little ways in and turn it. Then a little further and turn it. Etc. Until they are all open. They don’t have to all open at the same time…
After seeing this video I’m not sure what to think. The guy seems to have broke it.
Also take a look towards the end at how much honey is leaking out of the frames. Is this really what could happen?
Even Cedar mentioned in one of his videos that the frame will leak some honey back into the hive.
I think the hive has to have a tilt backwards, like 2.5%, something like that. He wasn’t very gentle with that outside frame, maybe that caused some of the honey to dump out. You can see it wasn’t sitting in the box properly at all. When Cedar mentioned some honey might go into the hive, it was just a couple of drops. Not sure why this guy brought the whole hive in, kind of defeats the purpose of the flow hive frames IMO. If you have problems opening the frames with the key, just start with a smaller section by inserting the key a little bit at a time.
Tim
In this video - https://youtu.be/Z54bL6kjyOI , cedar explains how to do it, and also how to do it a few frames at a time if it is hard to open the Flow Frames.
Anyone have problems with the wood at the top of the super on opposite side of harvest on a cedar frame? It is almost to the breaking point. Has anyone glued the wood or added wood support or metal supports to shore it up?