New beekeeper here. I have two of the pine Flow hives. I’ve recently added the Flow frames in the super and the doors on the ends are not fitting well. Could the screws on the end of the frames be out to far? Did not want to much space. Or could it be warping? They were fitting fine before.
I am afraid that without photos, we all guessing.
Would like to help, but unless I can see the problem, I have no idea. Sorry.
Dawn, I will get a picture when I get home. Thanks for your response!
I have to ask if you sealed the timber with a treatment of some kind, timber will absorb moisture like a sponge in the right conditions
The outside is sealed, left the inside unsealed as suggested.
Have a good look at the bottom of the door and where the bottom of the door fits into the hive, there is a good chance that it may be propolis preventing it from closing properly.
how have you treated the wood to protect it from the weather? The issue could be caused by a slight warp on that panel. I doubt you have those screws too far out- you want the rear panels of the frames to sit flush with the inside wall of the hive at the rear there- you should be able to remove the panel and see if the frames are sticking out at the bottom- if they were then they must not be hanging down straight but at a slight angle- but as I said I doubt that’s the issue- if the screws are too far out the frame simply won’t fit into the hive…
…to see if the door is warped, I suggest removing it and putting a straight edge against it. The first hive in the top photo shows the two pieces of wood (the panel above the removable door and the side panel of the hive) not really seated together, although given the split and lifting of the wood around the screw, it looks like reasonable effort was applied to the screw to bring the two pieces together.
There weren’t to many bees in the honey super on the comb Hive since I just put it on Sunday, so I decided to try screwing in the screws at the back of the flow frames and now the door on the comb Hive is fitting again. It is a snug fit, but it is flush. I did notice propolus on the screws, maybe it was enough to push the frames forward a bit.
Thank you everyone’s thoughts on the issue. Hopefully it will be the same for the other hive, going to suite up for that one (honey super has been on longer and bees all over it!).
Yes I have had similar problems with the pine product. Despite painting the door gets stuck with any kind of wet weather as does the side window cover. I have had fewer problems with the cedar version which I treated with oil as recommended. Also has problems with knobs coming off. I think the quality of the timber construction is not great. I will have to work out how to fix up these design flaws.
Peter, agreed, the workmanship on my original cedar FH wasnt great. Lucky i have tools and took to the joints with a grinder and steel cutting disk and ‘shaved’ timber where req’d to make it it fit. I fixed the issues.
Recently i purchased a pine version, lets see how that goes, but this time if things dont fit, ill ask for new parts as paying the $$ we do, i expect better fitment. i dont have the time atm to be mucking round fixing things up