Flow Hive Users in Foothills of Adirondacks New York

Hi…I’m about to purchase my first Flow Hive (or any hive, for that matter), and am curious about the benefits of either a six or seven frame hive with respect to giving the bees the best chance of survival through our harsh, upstate NY winters. Any advice you can give would be much appreciated.

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I think generally beekeepers in your area will keep 10 frame langstroth hives, as they do here in Ohio, which correlates to the 7 frame flow hive. You may also need an additional brood box, which need not be a flow hive-supplies box.

I started out doing double brood boxes but have switched all of my hives to single brood boxes and all survived the winter (so far). Management is much easier.

Believe it or not, it is probably getting relatively late to secure an order for bees for this season so while you’re working on that part I would encourage you to get some books and do a first-year beekeeping class locally.

There are some good online videos from Cornell and Guelph which probably have some management tips relevant to your climate.

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Hi Tom and welcome! Just making sure you know that in cold climates we don’t leave the Flow supers on, in case that thought was part of your excellent question about how to help the bees survive through winter. If you already knew that, great - but if you need more clarification let us know :blush:

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Hi Eva, I am a beginner starting with a Flowhive 2 in upstate NY. I am curious about how to winter the bees. I see you remove the Flow Super in winter. Is there enough honey in the brood box for the bees to get through winter? Do you add a 2nd brood box or do you always feed the bees through the winter? If feeding, do you give them dry sugar? Candy? Sugar water feeders would freeze I would think. Thank you for any insight.

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Hi did you manage to get any answer, im a beginner too, trying to figue out

Welcome to the forum Mike, and I’m sorry I missed your post @Wil! You pretty much answered your own questions with good insights though. I think in your area many beekeepers would try to have a double deep brood setup going into winter, so there would be enough honey stored not to have to feed. Some do fine with a single deep, I personally do 1 deep + 1 medium here in PA. I sometimes have to feed, so I always order a box or two of winter patties that consist of a lower percentage of protein plus sugar and honey B healthy. Also I insulate the outsides and under the lids. If you search overwintering the flow hive you’ll see tons of other posts about it too :+1:

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can i use a extra normal langstroth brood box with flowhive 2 or do i have to get the broodbox from flowhive

Standard langstroth boxes will fit close enough but you might want to check the roof fit. Sometimes it can be tight.

There can be some variation in the exact dimensions so don’t expect an exact match.

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