I have two hives in southeast texas. Both have 2 deeps. One has a traditional super and the other has a flow hive. The Flow Hive has been on the hive for 5 months. In both hives, the bottom deep is full of brood, pollen and some honey. The second deep in both hives is packed full of capped and some uncapped honey. In the traditional hive, the bees are building out the super. In the flow hive, there are always a lot of bees in the flow hive and they seem to be busy but there is absolutely no honey. Last week I pulled a couple of the center flow frames to check and there is no nectar whatsoever. They appear to be filling in the space in the cells but that is it and they are not doing all that much of that. I am at the point of pulling the flow hive off and selling it as it does not seem to be working at all.
I spoke with another beekeeper here that has 5 flow hives. She said she had the same problem in a couple of her hives but was able to solve the issue by swaping out a frame from the empty flow hive with one from a flow hive that the bees were filling regularly. She said that seemed to jump start them. I do not have another flow hive and am not in a position to buy one. We are coming up on our fall flow and I am concerned about a swarm as the bees may feel that they are running out of room. Any suggestions other than pulling the flow hive off and going back to traditional supers?
One thing I have considered is taking a couple of frames from the second deep and using them in the middle of the flow hive. Not sure how that would work for spacing etc. Anyone have experience with a mixed box and how they did it and what worked?
I need to do something in the next few days to avoid losing the hive altogether.