Documenting a Flow Hive in Adelaide- South Australia- First Season

hello Rob,

I think there is a lot of propolis on those frames because they are quite old? They were not the new frames that came with the flow brood box but came from the nuc. Having said that there is a little extra room in the brood box as we only have 8 frames in there. I will check the spacing next time I look in there. Looking at that 4th photo- I can see some comb on the tops of the frames (not propolis)- this was indeed new comb that the bees had added in the weeks between inspections. I think this was partly because the hive was absolutely booming and the bees were running out of room in the brood box. The speed with which they moved into the flow super and started filling out the frames makes me think the hive is doing very well.

Concerning the idea that the flow hive is somehow ‘harvest centric’: this is only true if the particular beekeeper thinks so… The Flow people never said that the flow hive is all about robbing the bees and getting honey- only that it makes the harvesting process easier for you and the bees. We are in no hurry to rob the hive excessively, and have no plans to rob more than you would in any langstroth hive before winter. My mum has joined a local bee keeping club- and is more interested in the entire process- and the health of the bees- than in simply robbing honey. The honey is really a bonus: not the goal. The last thing we want is to hurt the bees. We want them to continue to thrive.

As I understand it is normal practice around here to remove the entire super over winter? I am not sure if we will be doing that yet at this stage- we will seek advice from an experienced local bee keeper. Is this a fairly normal practice across Australia? I had been meaning to ask some of the beeks around here about this.

Sara: I think you have me (the OP) confused with Andrew who posted about his bee bearding after a harvest.

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Hi @Semaphore, not wishing to tell you how to suck eggs but if you hit the @ key and wait some names will come up .If your case sara may not come up, so immediately after the @ start typing sara and the @sara will appear just click on it. When ever you mention an @name that person will get notified some one has made reference to it. Without the @name the person may never see it.

Cheers
busso

thanks for that @busso -:wink: I had no idea- this really is a very well put together forum. The way it displays the high resolution photos is really great- not sure if readers realise -but if you click on the photos above you can zoom right in and get a very good view.

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The good news is I saw it without the little @ and yeah I was confused; -)

I did not mean the second comment to be aimed at you. Its just an observation I have made from many threads. Newbees getting a package then asking when to put the super on. In some ways it would be better if the flow super was sold by itself to go onto an existing hive.

However, the flow super you have is still a danger to the queen and I would remove it over winter so you can monitor your hive without it.

Cheers
Rob.

Dear moderator: If it is possible- could someone move this thread to the flow hive thread instead of here? I think it will end being better suited to that thread and some of the points I am about to make will be of interest there (perhaps).
I think I now know what happened to Andrews hive (pictured above in this thread)…

OK- Update time: First Flow Harvest!

Yesterday we inspected the super and removed one of the central frames. It was fully capped- except for two roughly circular sections in the middle of the frame. The bees had worked these sections with wax- but they were almost completely devoid of honey.


Already there was something of interest to note: It was easier to visually see how full the frame was by looking at the end of the frame that you could see if you had a window at the front of the hive. From this side it was immediately clear that the frame was full. From the back ‘business end’- it wasn’t so apparent.

With one frame out it was possible to check the frame beside it without removing it. This frame was 98% fully capped. The the two outermost frames were not complete but being worked well.

It was time to harvest! We placed the tubes in, and set about cracking the frames. I did this in increments- perhaps a 5th at a time- inserting the tool deeper each time. This made it very easy without much flex in the tool. Within seconds the Honey started to flow!

The initial joy was replaced by a little panic when I noticed honey dripping out of the bottom of the brood box.

Alarm was increased when a trickle started flowing out of the front entrance of the hive:

It was at precisely this point that we heard a distinctive little ‘bleat!’ from within the brood box! The Queen was Piping! No doubt about it when we heard a second distinct ‘bleat!’- from deep within the box, quite load and unlike any other bee noise! Seemingly the Queen was not amused with her afternoon ‘honey shower’!

We had the core flute out for cleaning and quickly put a tray under the hive to catch the honey. The bees started bearding at the front and looking at them you could see little droplets of golden honey splashed on many of them. They furiously set about licking each other and licking up the little river. It was quite surprising but they managed to lick up the entire pool from the entrance in just 5 minutes and made good time at cleaning each other. Good little bees.

There was some bearding:


meanwhile at the rear of the hive the jar was filling very rapidly and the bees showed no interest. The extraction tubes were completely full. After maybe 10 minutes the flow slowed to a steady trickle. After maybe 35 minutes we had approx 5-6kg. The honey was extremely bright yellow with a faint greenish tinge almost fluorescent looking- absolutely delicious reminding me of the distinctive Tasmanian Leatherwood flavor but milder with a faint peppery aftertaste! The honey was perfectly clear with no wax, bee bits etc.

In the end the honey leaking through the hive does not seem to have been a significant volume- there were only a few tablespoons on the tray we put under the hive and the quantity in the jar indicates the vast majority went in there.

However we think that next time we harvest- we are going to crack the frames incrementally (as we did) but leave them for 10 to 15 minutes between increments so the volume and pressure of the honey in the extraction tubes is less. I am also thinking (if it is practicable) it might be good to tilt the hive a few more degrees at extraction time to aid the flow.

By today Mum reports the bees are happily working away, and have already started putting honey back into the two frames we drained. Overall we were absolutely thrilled with the Flow Hive! We love it!

The issue of the leaks seems like it can be managed- BUT- I think if you harvested all six frames at once without doing it in increments- things could get really messy and cause more disturbance. It is possible the wires on our frames could be tighter- we didn’t closely check them before installing them. The bees have also added quite a bit of propolis plugging many small gaps so perhaps over time these leaks would decrease. However I don’t like to think of honey showering through the brood box- but I imagine in conventional hives (when brace comb breaks) and wild hives (think bear attack) this also occurs from time to time and is something the bees have probably learned to deal with aeons ago- and with some care it can be managed or eliminated using the flow frames.

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Great report. We need these, complete with hiccups, so we can learn from each other.

Sound like you may be right about tilting your hive backwards for harvest. A couple of shims would do the trick.

Cheers
Rob.

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What a great report thank you so much. I was thinking the leaking honey maybe the capped honey (above the circular uncapped cells) when you cracked that particular section of the frame the honey may have run down and out of the empty cells from the pressure buildup.
Cheers Tim

Hello,

yes- the honey is either coming out of cells near the bottom of the frame- or through the joints in the drainage tube- or both. But Yes i think you are right that more came out because of those large uncapped empty sections! Stupid but I didn’t think of it. However it gets out- the problem was exacerbated the pressure of the flow. By doing it in increments hopefully the tube would never fill completely, the pressure would be a lot lower, and a lot less honey would escape.

My mum just gave me a heads up that all of this has actually been covered before on the forum back in January. Should have read more…

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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?

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Thank you so much for the updates and the superb photos.
Your reports on your experiences will surely help to guide my actions in the future and lessen any surprises.

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Don’t really know your condition but they woul be similar to mine. I keep a two deep hive over winter and the bees use that very well. It really gives them a boost in spring and winter feeding is not needed. This produces big hive and they can really collect honey. Its so successful that this year I have a few going into winter in three deeps as I have nowhere to store the honey from them and figured the bees would look after it till spring.

Worth thinking about a normal super under the QE for the bees.

Cheers
Rob.

PS. Loving the reports.

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Apparently it is quite common here in Australia to winter a single brood box- whereas I gather in your parts two is de rigueur? I had thought a good compromise might be to add a medium super? I doubt Mum would be adverse to expanding her hive…, But- You wouldn’t add another brood box at the start of winter in any case would you?

I wouldn’t try adding another box here now. My bees are not into making comb, just filling what they have with what they can find.

Cheers
Rob.

Update: Last Inspection Prior to Winter

we wanted to make a final check of the brood before full winter so we waited for a sunny day. Opening the hive roof- Dead Bees:

Bees tongues poking out indicating pesticide Poisoning. No Good!

We opened the cover and removed the queen exluder for winter:

Hive was bursting with healthy looking bees fortunately. We went through the combs- first looking for the queen- then shaking (most of) the bees off back into the hive and inspecting each comb. We didn’t see the queen. Here are the frames:










So as you can see brood at all stages, eggs (?), pollen, capped and uncapped honey. There is a lot of capped honey- perhaps 4 of the 8 frames are full of honey. Is this too high a honey to brood ratio? The brood is centered in the hive but a little to one side. We swapped position of two frames to center it further.

Many of the brood frames have plastic foundation, and all are old (that’s how they came in the Nuc). Though the queen seems to be laying fine in these frames- I think I would like to swap out the old frames for fresh (no plastic) ones in spring- a complete Bailey Comb Change?

One of the outer frames had some different looking nectar/pollen. It looks wet- and kind of candied like honey- but multi-pollen colored?- what is this? And what’s with the larger cells above- drone cells?


The hive bearded for a little- then quickly settled back down. All in all- we think things look good for winter? Any one have any thoughts?

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The wet, shiny stuff is bee bread, pollen they have chewed up and stored. Its their major protein source. The large cells look like a couple of old drone cells to me which they will probably use for honey. Your brood looks perfect to me but I would not be moving frames this time of year.

Cheers
Rob.

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Wow, thanks for your amazing journey to date.
We will commence our journey this year and really appreciate your photos and reports.
Living in SA too means that we have the same time frame as you so will eagerly watch your posts.

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Thank you very much for your updates. My Flow Hive arrived today and I now need to read a lot more to begin my journey. I live in Adelaide as well, so was interested to read how you got on.
I must say I feel a bit nervous about beginning, being cry new to all of this. I have three wild hives at our property which are in old tree trunks. This is what spurred me on to take the leap into having our own hive. There are also several native bees using our property for foraging which is lovely to see. The only bee selling I can find is on kangaroo island. However there are local beekeeper In my area I will approach. Thank you again for a very informative page. I am sure I will visit it again. Isabelle

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I was worried about there being almost enough room for a ninth frame too. Thanks for the timely advise .

@Semaphore Not sure why but I can’t seem to load the pics from this post. (Noticed that they are over 1mb - the small ones i can see fine - yay) I would love to see the one with the bolts and tuna cans . We are having an ant issue . Is it possible to repost or send me the image? Its okay if that too much hassle. thought I’d ask. thanks Tina
( I hope this attaches to the correct post - Not sure why its coming at the bottom - all a learning curve :slight_smile: )