OK- Update time: Flow Hive Wintering
winter is literally a moment away so we decided to remove the Flow super and give the bees a chance to store a little honey for the winter in the brood box.
To begin with we inspected the super to see what we had. Having extracted 2 central frames a few weeks ago- we were confident that there would be two others in the middle that were full- and they were- except for some rows where the cells were not properly closed when the frames were installed and which the bees avoided and/or left till last:
(detail: cells in open position)
The two frames we had drained had already been refilled with honey- and sections re-capped- but a lot of the honey was watery nectar, and not ready to harvest:
The two outermost frames were capped and ready- except for the entire face of the frame on the far side (without the window). The inside side of this frame was fully capped- the outer was virtually empty. Seems that outermost face was the bees least favorite place…
We replaced all the frames and drained the four that were ready. After out last experience we decided to do this in increments- a 5th of the way at a time- waiting for ten minutes at least between each increment. This meant the process took a few hours- as we only did two frames at a time- however it definitely worked better than last time with less honey coming out through the bottom of the hive- and the bees seemed less disturbed. We also put a 3cm wood shim under the front of the hive to raise it up a few more degrees so the honey would flow out faster. At no point was the honey drain tube completely full of honey - meaning less pressure and less honey leaking into the hive. I think 100%: this is the way to go.
A little honey got spilled - and a few bees came over to try and see what could be salvaged:
each time a bee would touch the stream they would be dragged down into the bucket. I had to rescue maybe 25 bees from a sticky grave- returning them to the baseboard to be cleaned by their fellows. As the incremental cracking approach takes more time you don’t want a lot of bees drowning in honey. Next year we really want to work out some kind of lightweight manifold so the tubes can be plumbed into the bucket with no bee access. It would be REALLY great if Flow could make a lightweight manifold out of the same material as the little tubes. Even better if it could be adapted to do varying numbers of frames at a time…
At the end we harvested around 8kg’s of really superb honey. Meaning we totaled around 15kg’s in our first Flow season.
Our next task for the day was to remove the flow super: we were slightly concerned about this- how would we get all the bees into the brood box- but in practice it turned out to be a simple affair. We have a large plastic tub with a lid that could fit all 6 flow frames. We took the super off the hive- placing it on the cover to the side of the hive and then removed one frame at a time- giving them a single sharp shake over the brood box before putting them into our tub. At the end only a few bees were in our tub with the frames and we released them. This is how the brood box looked at this stage:
It had been a long day for the bees- but they were well behaved the whole time. We had planned to inspect the brood box before winter- however after harvesting and removing the super we decided it was enough for one day- looking into the brood box from the top it all looked very good.
If you were wondering what those Sirena tuna cans are doing beside the hive- wonder no more: Mum observed several small ants entering the hive in recent weeks- they entered through a small gap at the rear door of the super. When we harvested we didn’t see any ant issues but thought it was time to up the ante- in the ant war. Enter Sirena Tuna. 4 bolts - bolted head down through a wood board, each tuna can with a little oil in it:
Try getting past that Ants! Ha ha.
Ok- that’s it- we just need to put in an entrance reducer and the Semaphore Hive is Wintered (we will inspect the brood once more in a week or two).
It must be awful crowded in that brood box tonight- nice and warm!
We were left with the two frames which were only partially capped. We took these inside with the super box, and drained them on a bench. It was interesting to be able to see what happens when they are cracked. We got around 3.5 liters of nectar- it was definitely too watery to be called honey. Our plan is to freeze this- and feed it back to the bees- perhaps over winter? And maybe make a little mead… ?
Tomorrow we are going to put the empty flow frames beside the hive to see if the bees will get in there and start cleaning them up. After that we were thinking to freeze them- to kill any wax moth larvae, etc- and then store them hermetically wrapped in plastic over winter. Interested in anyone’s thoughts about storing the frames- and how to deal with them next season: I am assuming you just insert them with all of last years broken wax capping on them? Give the bees a good head start?