Hi,
We have a gap at the back of our Flow Hive as can be seen in the photo.
When opening the rear panel the bees start flying out and it can be hard to get them out of the way when putting the rear cover panel back on.
Does anyone know of a good way to cover this up?
The bees spend a bit of time adding propolis there which always gets damaged when taking the panel off so would be good to prevent that if possible.
Ian
The Garden Rooftop!
Hi Ian, I had the same problem.
I was able to overcome the gap by slightly repositioning the flow frames towards the side frame with the gap.
I could then move that frame over slightly to almost close the gap.
The movement of the other frames is only miniscule.
Worked for me.
Cheers, G
That’s another defective Flow super I have to say. It is missing shims.
Myself (and others) had the exact same annoying problem and I think Flow really have have a word with the quality control guys. You should have four strips of wood in each corner so that there won’t be any gaps for the bees to escape, and the Flow frames sit snuggly inside the box
You can either cut four strips of wood about 3mm x 10mm and stick them there, or find something else that can work as a shim. I found some spare plastic ‘tongues’ from wood flooring that are just the perfect thickness for my super. Others used a strip of aluminium.
Or just email Flow and I’m sure they will send you some.
To illustrate, this is what I I’m talking about, the one on the left is missing shims in the corners, the one on the right is not.
Hi @The_garden_rooftop and @George_Slieker, it looks like Z is right and you are missing the timber strips.
Mine were missing too in one of the supers and I’m glad I noticed before the super was in use, otherwise it is a bit of a pain to put them in while being used unless you have a spare box.
If you have a table saw, it is very easy to cut four strips to size, and staple/glue them in. I just used standard 19mm pine and from memory they were 4mm thick, but best is to measure the gap and divide by two, and give a little breathing space.
Otherwise, email @KieranPI and he’ll fix you up ASAP. Won’t you Kieran? 
Hi, This picture shows a Flow Hive 2, which will have the acrylic shims provided separately these simply need to be screwed into place. Classic Flow Hives have the timber shims already attached.
Interesting, why use plastic shims now @KieranPI ?
Hello Ian, I can see you purchased a Flow Hive Hybrid initially, this does not come with shims, as the Flow Frames are centred and the rear panel and front panel hold these in place. I can see you upgraded and this was overlooked with your upgrade. Although you don’t have shims a quick work around will be to space out the Flow Frames so there is a small gap between each, the bees wont be able to fit through and will simply propolis up the small openings.
Yep sure will 
The timber shims had been broken in the past, held in place with staples, the acrylic allows for them to be replaced if needed. It can also offer more options for customisation - Say if you wanted to put in a separator to decrease the overall internal size of the Flow Super, where maybe a localised season doesn’t quite see a whole deep super fill.
Hi everyone, thank you for all the helpful responses!
To start we will try to space the frames out a little so the bees can fill up the gaps themselves with propolis. Seems like the easiest and most practical solution.
If this doesn’t work I can make my own little shims.
Yes @KieranPI we did upgrade! Well spotted!
Thanks again everyone!
Ian & Phil - The Garden Rooftop
