Hi,
I know the topic has been discussed many times here but I getting desperate…
My flow frames are empty… completely, desperately empty for the past month. They are (I think and checked several times) well set, I have added a bit of wax on top, then even honey to motivate the bees to come and start filling the frames. they are a few bees on them going in and out but nothing at all in them.
My brood box is full to the tilt of honey to the point that there was nearly no brood the other day…
I have put 2 empty built frames with a little bit of honey in between the flow frames and those were full within a couple of days !! but my flow frames remained empty !
Anyone who had this and managed to overcome it. please help !
I’m going to have a go at this one. I haven’t done this myself, but will offer a suggestion as you are desperate.
I’m not sure where exactly you put the 2 empty built frames. I mean, were they essentially in the middle of the super? I think the bees can escape out of the (open) back viewing panel without the Flow frames all in situ, but assuming you put the built frames in the middle of the super, perhaps try instead leaving three Flow frames in the middle of the super and filling the rest of the super with honey filled built frames (or empty if you can’t get full ones) and see how that goes.
G’day Thomas, where abouts in the world are you? If you’re downunder as I am, you’ll find that the bees have constricted the brood & stored lots of honey around the brood. If you’re in the N. hemisphere, you’ll probably need to wait til your worker population gets stronger & your bees are on a decent honey flow.
thanks for that. I put the 2 empty build frames (they actually had a bit of
honey + pollen in them) in the middle. I will give 3 days to what I have
done with the “pre filling” of honey and see how that go. If nothing
happens, I will try your solution;
@JeffH, @ToxicDiver appears to be in Maisons Laffitte, (West of Paris) France, according to his profile (I figured out you have to click through to a person’s profile and not just hover/single click…that REALLY USEFUL info doesn’t appear for easy checking… @Faroe, feel free to pass that on as a suggested improvement (ensure it comes up when you hover/single click, rather than clicking through and leaving the thread) to whatever developers are working for Flow )
@ToxicDiver, I did similar to you. However, I put the traditional frames in position 3 and 5 and ‘squashed’ the frames up. Perhaps something different I did was the fact I put capped brood frames (no drones) in and not just honey frames.
Hi,
Not having hybrid frame/flowframe super my situation is a little different , but be patient. My bees took 14 months for them to be happy with the flow frames. Then they filled them in a few weeks.
My thoughts would be first (as JeffH has suggested) to have a very very strong hive before you put the super on…most important. Then put the super on and if you put in your standard frames full of honey with the flow frames and your nectar flow is strong maybe they will move to the flow frames and/or move honey to them…
@snowflakehoney what do you mean about the squashed the frames up ?
I did exactly that as well put frames without any bees from the brood box
to the super with brood, honey and pollen.
@JeffH and @Busso I am West of PAris, the hive is what I would consider
very strong with very large number of bees in the brood box with strong
reserve of pollen and honey, a lot of activity.
What is your ratio of workers vs drones. You need to make sure that all of your brood frames are producing predominantly workers. If you do that, your worker population will build, then coupled with a good honey flow, they’ll fill the flow frames. I’m speaking from experience of friends of mine.
@toxicdiver by “squashed up” I mean pushed together. Traditional frames are not as wide as flow frames. So I push all the frames together and have the gap between the outer flow frames and box rather than between the traditional and flow frames.
I just responded before, and then realised the problem. I was working on this issue a while ago with the IT team to make the location compulsory, and for this to be displayed when you click on the user image.
We made location compulsory, but it is only showing on their complete profile, not their little pop-up card (not sure what it’s called).
They are looking into it again, and hopefully it will be changed soon…
e.g. I clicked once on your name and this is what I can see:
@Faroe in my screenshot you can see my location. On toxicdivers you can’t see his location…but when you go through to his profile by clicking again you can…
People have said it, but I’ll reinforce by saying that you need a really strong hive. That means they shouldn’t just be filling the brood boxes but spilling out and bearding over the front of the hive.
I too waited patiently for the bees to start on the flow frames. They were happy to build and fill wax combs, just not keen on the flow. One hive really didn’t like the queen excluder and so not many went upstairs… sorted that out eventually with a new queen of different stock!
Thank you for your help and support on this topic. I think I got a
solution…
Following my “pre filling” (a very nice word for messy spread) of the Flow
frames with honey from the hive, the bees have immediately started
accepting the flow frames…
It could be completely coincidental but after several weeks of waiting and
trials (insert of empty frames, insert of brood box frames with brood,
pollen, honey in between or at the edge, spread of wax of flow frames,
Witch doctor dancing anticlockwise, etc…), it gaves me results within 4
days…
Let me know for those with the same problem, if it helps you or not…
I have fixed the issue with location display Hooray
The only people who’s area won’t be displayed is very old users that didn’t add their location to their profile.
They can add it now and their location will easily display with one click.
)
