You noticed the knots in the timber too Jeff? Maybe I was lucky when I bought my Flow hives that there wasn’t any.
Cheers
Hi Pete, it’s not just the knots. Look at the side of the bottom board. It’s those side rails. They all have those side rails with the bulge down in the middle.
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Hi @Jeff, yes, it came with a bamboo QE. I’ve scraped it, baked it, dropped it and haven’t had any issues. Queen has stayed below. Only time will tell on the longevity. My only gripe is due to the extra thickness, there’s extra bee space, so the girls go crazy with burr comb. I extracted 300ml of honey from that alone today.
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So inspected the hive today and put my frame holder to the test… it failed as one frame fell off. I need to move the brackets closer together…
Other than that, inspection yielded some good results. Between the 2 hives, there were 5 frames ready for extraction. The remaining are very close to being fully capped, but I’ll leave them for the colony over the winter.
As an experiment, this frame started out as a small strip on the top bar. Whilst the girls drew out the frame nicely, they decided they wanted more drones. Suffice to say, this colony was full of drones. I’m calling it the ‘happy hive’ for now.
Managed to spot the queen in this hive also. Can you spot her?
Cheers,
Fred
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Beautiful capped Flow frame! I’m curious about all the drones though, as you’re going into winter. Usually lots of drones are a sign of getting ready to swarm in spring.
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@Eva,
@fffffred lives somewhere in the Perth Metro/suburban area or at least in Western Australia in close proximity to Perth… Winter is a relative concept. Granted it is uncommon but today we had a temp of 39.5 degC in Perth and still have trees in flower in some areas. Based on the past few years @fffffred has at least 7 weeks and possibly a bit longer before cold weather or forage (depending where his hives actually reside) becomes a concern.
Also just note I’m talking Perth WA cold when I talk of concerns with cold temperatures, not Perth Scotland, Perth ON, or even Perth Tassie cold… Think minimums of low to mid single digit Deg C and maximums of mid to high teens Deg C, sometimes even low 20s.
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Hi Fred, that’s fantastic to hear. The bamboo must be too hard for the bees to chew on. It’ll be interesting to see how long it lasts because the plastic ones are only good for about 2 years.
cheers
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Yay, you found the queen!
In hindsight, to encourage more worker comb, I should have placed the foundationless frame closer to the middle of the brood frames, instead of the outside.
I’m not concerned with swarming because there were no signs of swarming - ie swarm cells, not honey bound etc. and the time of the season.
The queen is certainly fertile, as there’s plenty of capped worker brood cells. So no concern that she’s infertile.
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Agreed. I’m avidly sucking all this information up. So a huge THANK YOU to all.
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Guess what I’m aiming to do this weekend?
It will be the first time I’ve opened up since closing up for winter. I left the super on over winter. Interesting to see what I find.
My local supplier didn’t have any pre-made frames… so I had a go at assembling a few, and wiring up. It was quite fun 
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Hey there Freddy I’m doing the same. I also left the super on because they didn’t have much honey in the brood box before we sad goodbye end of autumn.
Plan is to go double brood boxes and not sure yet how to go about it.
I hope I can still get in to the bee suit. The more chocolate I eat the smaller it gets.
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Gorgeous day to inspect. 21 deg C. Little wind. Bees behaved so well - smoked the hive once and didn’t need to use it again.
Plenty of eggs. Frames looked healthy with plenty of stores. 3 frames of honey in the super from each hive hadn’t been touched over winter - will likely extract them next week.
Took 4 frames from each hive and made 2 pre-emptive splits.
Spotted both queens… can you find them?
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Thanks Fred for the running commentary, it has been a great source of information for someone starting out with bees. Mine arrive the end of September so I am patiently waiting. The pictures are brilliant especially trying to find the queens, it gives me a bit of confidences for what I need to look for when inspecting my own hive.
I do have a question when you place a second brood box on due to your hive expanding or to help prevent swarming, do you move the queen excluder to the second box below the supper and then allow the queen to work both brood boxes. Thanks
Steve
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Hi Steve,
You are correct, excluders typically go below the super. It is a barrier to prevent the queen from laying in the super frames.
Can I ask why you have decided to have 2 brood boxes?
Regards,
Fred
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No my setup will be 1 brood box and a flow super, I was just interested after reading the various posts and I though this would be a way to prevent swarming. Being new to the business it seems that swarming is something that will happen but there are different way to prevent it which I am interested to learn further.
At the moment it is not a problem for me because my bees don’t arrive until next month, then the questions will really start 
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Hey Steve, having two brood boxes in itself is not a measure to prevent swarming, you still need to weaken the hive on subsequent years when you see their desire to swarm.
I personally got interested in two brood boxes because it gives me more options in managing frames (the Flow super takes non standard frames) and to be able to remove the super over winter and have peace of mind they have enough honey, hopefully. Making splits with a double brood box is also a bit easier compared to an 8-frame box. Well that’s what I think anyway…
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A second brood box won’t prevent swarming Steve, that is a myth. A double brood box won’t mean the hive will provide twice as much honey - that is another myth. Two hives with single brood boxes will yield more honey than a single double brood hive.To almost prevent swarming is up to the bee keeper to apply best practice in hive management. To prevent swarming the bee keeper has to be proactive to prevent it happening.
Cheers
I implore you for reading as much as you can before receiving your colony. You will find also that you’ll get many opinions based on different experiences.
Also once you get the bees, it will be a different experience all again.
I tend to agree with Pete above. The dilemma with double brood box is a larger colony to handle, more frames to inspect, and depending on your micro climate and available forage - possibly greater chance of swarming if the colony is very productive.
I’ve stuck with single brood and super for the above reason. It’s also worth noting I have 10 frame full depth boxes. Ate you running 8f or 10f?
I’m in the inner suburbs of Perth 10km from the CBD. There appears to be forage all year round. Happy to show you through my apiary if you’re nearby. PM me.
Cheers,
Fred
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Hi Fred, I will be running an 8 frame and I have signed up for the Introduction to Responsible Bee Keeping with the WA Apiarist Society, plus reading as much as I can. Plus this forum supplies so much information.
Also thanks for the offer to have look at your setup, that will be very much appreciated. I will give you a call sometime tomorrow.
Regards
Steve