Hi everyone, first time poster - long time reader.
Finally set up my flow hive 2 today with the help of my mentor/seller of the brood. Purchased an established brood from his many hives and everything is good to go.
Brood box has 6 full frames and they’ve started on the last 2 already.
This shows the flow frames moved around to reduce the gaps in between. If I push them all to one side, I have a gap of over 1cm and some of the little guys walk right through.
Hi @ropate ! How exciting about your bees! Whoop! If you take a flow frame out and move the others next to each other you will close up the gaps in front and put the last one back in place. Additionally there is an adjustable screw on the rear of the flow frame that you can tighten or loosen to ensure a snug fit in the flow super box. Once all ans sitting snugly together and flush on the front of the super closing the gaps you might see a little gap left and right of the cluster of frames. The bees will fill that in. Here is a video from youtube on how to ensure the adjustment of the super goes. at minute 12 is the part of the flow super https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsu52qMlDaA I hope that helps. Sincerely,
Martha
I am suspecting that you are not having the frames sitting EXACTLY side by side, At the top of the flow frames is an adjusting screw that you will turn out till there is about 1mm of end movement and then the frames will be correctly fitted and the gap gone.
If the gap is still there you could glue a piece of wood to the side of the box to close it up to about 1 to 2mm which will not be enough room for a bee to pass thru.
Hope that helps, regards
As others have said, you should have spacers on the Flow super wall. In my Flow super, they were not thick enough, and I had a 5mm gap between two frames if I pushed all the others together. I solved it by stapling tongue depressors (I am a doctor ) to the spacer strip. You can also use ice lolly sticks, paint stirrers or “craft sticks” for the same purpose. All are available from Amazon, eBay and local supermarkets or hardware stores.
Just a thought. Beekeeping is all about improvising.
By the way, after a year, the frames were too tight in the super (maybe the wood shrunk a bit?), so I was glad that I had not glued the extra sticks in place. With staples, they were very easy to remove.
Yes, there should have been 4 acrylic inner spacers to be screwed into the inside of both super side panels, 2 each. This will bring the Flow Frames closer together. There is also a few mm of gap present for ease of operation, should there be a large gap, evening out the spacing of each Flow Frame will reduce the gap, and bees will the propolis the smaller gaps. Do let us know at faults@honeyflow.com with your order number and we can sort the spares to be sent out to you, should they be missing. –Kieran
) to the spacer strip. You can also use ice lolly sticks, paint stirrers or “craft sticks” for the same purpose. All are available from Amazon, eBay and local supermarkets or hardware stores.
