Flow frames look jagged?

Flow Hive Purchasing, Shipping, Orders
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So my flow frames arrived yesterday and I took them out and tested opening and closing. I noticed that when I look at the front of the frames the one half of each cell seems to be longer than the other so when you run your finger over it its not smooth.

Not what I expected - is that what they look like up close? I tried to find a close-up picture anywhere to confirm that’s right but in all the pictures it looks like they are level.

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Hi Sabina, my frames are the same and I thought the same as you, I thought they would have been even depth/ height. After googling for ages found pictures that indeed show the difference in height of the cells is normal. The bees build them up level with wax apparently. Cheers Tim

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This is by design. The result is that half of the sections are directly capped and the other have have a bit of wax cell wall. That way when you break them open the cappings don’t break much if at all which keeps the honey running down inside the frame rather than any of it running out of the frame into the colony.

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Wow that’s rather ingenious…I was one of those…‘hmm wonder why that is, but I won’t ask’. No wonder it took the guys ten years to perfect the Flow concept, there must have been some awful messy trial and errors on the way…the more I learn about how it all works the more I admire the guys.

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Thanks for the info, helps me to understand how it all works

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Just got my Flow frames and had exactly the same thoughts…that doesn’t look right. But a quick trip to the Flow forum has answered my question. Awesome :grin:

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I just got a close look at the frames last night at our local beekeeping meeting, and we noticed exactly the same thing. My immediate thought was - I bet the bees draw the cells out to an even length before capping them. I didn’t think of the honey retention aspect of making a covered shear plane, but that is truly genius.

Dawn

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You start to appreciate the advantage of ten years of experimentation and improvement…

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Indeed! I loved the latest bee package installation video from Flow too. Apparently they got some famous bloke to show us how it is done! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I wonder who that is, then? :smile:

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I’ve never seen that video, or the other two. Thanks. I think that’s some old hippie from the US… he looks familiar…

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