New to bee keeping, getting my nuk at end of the month and trying to get everything ready!
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Good luck, hopefully you’ve been reading and studying. Haven’t looked at your past post, but please do not put the flow frames on your B’s until there busting at the seams and you likely may need a second brood box before putting the flow frames on, check with your local B club to find out what standard practice is.
Were here to support just let us know, best of luck
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I’ve read a beekeeping book and assembled my flow hiveand read the paperwork that goes with it and don’t remember hearing anything said about not using the flow hive(I’m guessing you mean the supers)
Until they’re busting at the seams with bees ( I’m guessing you mean in the brood box)?
I do have a second brood box , so I have 2/8 frame brood boxes with frames…
My plan was to bring my nuk home next weekend which already has the bees on the brood box frames, and put them in my flow Hive with the supers above it and smear some wax on to the flow Supers?
Okay let me further explain. Sounds like we might be close to the same page. And please, please, one more time, please do not take any offense to any thing I might say. We’ve had some people on here that have done some amazing weird things that none of us have heard of. And it’s hard to communicate, sometimes with just messages, take this.
When you bring the nuc home, it will typically be a five frame deep. You will transfer them into your eight frame brood box. You will wait until it feels like you cannot get one more bee in that brood box likely 3 to 5 weeks if not two months. And potentially we will add a second brood box. Once that box is also close to busting and it seems. You will then put the Queen exclude her on and the honey super i.e. flow frame box. When I say flow frames . I am talking what Cedar and his father developed. The flow frames. The flow hive is just the namebrand of the overall set up. But do check with your local B club bee to see if to brood boxes are standard for your area.
You will not want to put your two deep brood boxes and your honey super on all at the same time. The bees will not be able to keep it as warm and they will not build out it evenly
Okay good to know (I’m glad that you mentioned not putting the plastic flow parts in right away) and yes my nuk is supposed to be five frames so I’ll put three empty ones in there wait for everything to fill up…
The beekeeper I’m getting my nuk.from last week said “don’t be surprised if the bees won’t take to the flow plastic parts” as he’s had others try to use these and they could not get any of it to work.
But now that I’m hearing what you’re saying I’m wondering if people automatically put the plastic Flow part in immediately and it fails so they chalk it up as that the system doesn’t work (I hope this was the case)
I do not have any foundation in my frames (only the small comb guide at the top)
Not sure if anyone has success doing their brood boxes without foundations?
So once the first brood box is busting at the seams that I put the entire second 8 frame brood box on top of the four first brood box (is this second brood box going to be filled with the bees that are in the first brood box and create a second queen or will it just have one Queen for both brood boxes?)
Thanks Matt
I’m struggling understanding your last paragraph. When you put your second brood box on top, the bottom brood box 8 frames will be full. Foundation or no foundation. It will be full of honeycomb all eight frames.
There’s a couple of different ways of thought on how to additionally get your bees building in the second brood box, one is just put the new box on top and they will start. I would suggest taking two of the frames out of the bottom box and putting them on top with one empty frame in between, or maybe even staggering, All the frames with each other.
That’s what I did.
When I first started I did to foundation list as well. It’s truly a lot of work for a new beekeeper to do. And a little scary. Your needing to go in and keep the bees building along the foundation starter. They want to build cross, all the time and you will be cutting it out and re-putting it where it needs to be. This is just new to a first-time beekeeper trying to get their head wrapped around, it was for me
Hiya Matt, welcome to the forum. Beekeeping can be a time consuming, addictive and rewarding hobby but like most things a book can’t tell you everything and read 2 books and you’ll likely find conflicting advice so the more you learn the more questions you will have.
Adding boxes. As Marty says you can’t throw it all together, walk away and expect to come back later with a piece of toast, turn a tap and get honey on your toast. I’ll add some wise words from one of our members, Dawn;
For each box you have, don’t add another until all of the below are true:
Every frame has fully drawn comb.
The comb is at least 80% full of food or brood.
Every frame is completely covered with bees when you inspect. A fully covered deep frame will have about 1,000 to 1,500 bees per side, so you can then guess how many bees are in your hive, if you are interested. 
When those 3 rules are all true, you know the bees need the new space, they will use it quickly, and they have enough “bee-power” to heat and defend the new space.
Having a plan for treating for mites and beetles seems essential over there, feeding, inspecting, adding boxes, removing boxes, insulating, wax moth, are all things that need to be understood for a productive, healthy colony. Hard work? I reckon. Too hard? That’s up to you, good luck.
I don’t shy away from hard work I’m an industrial electrician and I work nights so I do have time during the day to spare depending on what season it is because I also make my own maple syrup but that is already over with so I understand what hard work is because making maple syrup is a ridiculous process that most people don’t understand why small bottle of maple syrup cost so much…
How soon do I need to worry about mites Beatles and any other problems that can invade my hive bird box that I’m going to get next week?
Mmmmmmm real maple syrup, yum.
Err sorry.
Treating, start planning yesterday. 
How often, when, how?
Many colonys fail due to these pests from both experienced and newbees alike. Be prepared. Plenty of posts regarding treatments on the forum have a look through then throw the questions at the gang. 
Matt, typically your first year you shouldn’t have a problem. If the colony was truly a new Nuc. that’s my understanding. I didn’t find any mites at all my first year. Second year is when they typically start coming into an issue. May want to check out getting a mite shaker.
Look at this method, it’s called a sugar shaker https://pollinators.msu.edu/resources/beekeepers/varroa-mite-monitoring1/
last honeybee class I went to talk to about checking for Varroa, really emphasize doing an alcohol test it’s almost the same thing. I just hate killing bees.
I hope all this helps. It’ll all come with time you’re doing good, you’re on a forum with people that care and want to help. Just work with us, it’s been stated many times if you asked three beekeepers the same question you’re probably going to get five different answers. You need to figure out which ones work best for you.
I have done none of these test above.
the test I’ve done, and I did promise the professor at the last B club meeting that I would at least do his test that he wants me to to do and that’s one of the above preferably the alcohol test
so what I’ve done in the past is my bottom box if you got the same as me i.e. flow frame has a screen bottom board. And it has the ability to slide in the wax cardboard. I take it, slightly greasy it with Crisco oil, slighted in and let it set for three days pull it out and then start counting the mites. It’s not easy to count them. After you count all them you divide by the number of days you left it in and that’s a minimum of three days. Then if your account is under 30 you don’t necessarily need to treat. If it’s over 30 you definitely need to consider treating. Anything over 50 you’ve got a real problem. I’m to continue to do both test side-by-side i.e. sliding in the grease bottom board and the alcohol test just to see the differences.
He stated that the grease bottom board test was suggested at one time but it’s been documented not all that effective. I’m going to continue both just because I don’t want it not to work I like that method much better.
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