We have a problem with small hive beetle and I don’t want them crawling in from underneath.
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I installed the bees in their new hive yesterday. Didn’t see the queen but there are now 16 frames and more than half of them have brood. I did see quite a few larvae in various stages so I guess the royal lady is in there somewhere.
Yesterday my girls were quite disturbed, angry even but I suppose I was invading their home and they probably felt a bit violated. One of the girls gave me half a sting through the beard as I observed the hive from 5metres away. A few more buzzed me with evil intent. They were still a bit angry today but not as bad as yesterday.
Didn’t take most of the bees long to start using the new entrance. A few clustered in little groups on the old hive now dismantled on the rack. They had all gone by this morning and I was able to remove the old hive completely.
I deliberately left the back access to the hive bottom uncovered so I can easily see what is going on inside. Yesterday a few hundred bees were hanging off the underside of the 3mm screen. There are fewer this evening, perhaps 50 or so.
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Did you smoke well? If you get stung it helps to smoke the site as it dulls the pheromone to attack, which is left in the sting area.
I used plenty of smoke when transferring the bees. The half sting was afterwards when there were a cloud of bees around the hive.
They were much quieter today but there is still a small cluster of bees on the underside of the 3mm screen. I imagined they would all have found the entrance by now. Some of the bees in the cluster appear to have been foraging. They have pockets full of pollen.
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In between rain showers today, I made up one of those conical, flyscreen, one way bee valves. I put it where the back door of the base will be going and watched for a while. A bee was trying to escape but the 4mm diameter hole in the screen was proving too hard to find. I snipped with the scissors and enlarged the hole to around 6mm diameter. Off she flew. This evening only five bees remain trapped below the 3mm screen. The other couple of dozen have escaped through the bee valve.
Sometime tomorrow the oil tray will be going in.
More pics please? I am fascinated by your project.
Dawn
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This first pic shows part of the one way bee valve attached to a bit of scrap timber. You can see the steel legs sitting in their ant deterring bowls as well. The bowls are supposed to be filled with oil but the steel legs will need a rain deflector first. At present, rain landing on the hive drains down those legs. Any oil in the bowls would soon flush away.
The next pic is the view through the one way bee valve itself. You can see grains of pollen on top of the flyscreen floor. These could have come from the confused bees using the underside of the hive or they could have fallen through the 3mm bottom board screen.
This oil tray probably took less than ten minutes to make. I cut a 300mm X 430mm rectangle from soft annealed 0.3mm aluminium flashing.
Bent opposite edges to make 10mm sides.
Flattened the ends ready to bend the other sides.
The sides were bent over the edge of a glass topped table. (The lovely lady had gone shopping.)
Corners were pinched in with pliers and turned against the sides.
tray almost completed.
50mL of vegetable oil in the tray and it slides uner the 3mm screen.
Gap at the sides is about 15mm because the flashing was only 300mm wide.
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Wow, thank you for all of the work in taking the photos. Impressive piece of design and execution! I look forward to hearing how it works for you in overcoming the undesirable critters! 
Dawn
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I am going to make some of these for ant prevention:
https://picasaweb.google.com/MichaelJShantz/BeeHive4302010#5601072462012353570
I am actually going to try 2 inch PVC end caps to save gluing a 2" pipe to the acrylic as shown, with one inch PVC pipe as the support. I have tons of old CDs and DVDs that are obsolete with the cloud to use a roof to deter bee entry, and keep any water out. I will probably drill a one inch hole in the CD “roof” for sucking out old and ants and replacing with new. The hole could be rotated under the hive most of the time to prevent rain entry (not that we get much rain, or even enough rain!). Might even see if I can get 3" end caps, to make things a little easier to fill and drain.
Dawn
Thanks for that Dr Dawn.
Years ago I remember making things with acrylic and using chloroform as glue. I imagine that would be a no no now!
I imagine mating the PVC with the acrylic would have been tricky. Supaglue isn’t particularly gap filling. When I’m using PVC for our water collecting system, I use a solvent glue based on butanone (methyl ethyl ketone).
…and (finally) there’s an update on the initial idea!
I am delighted to inform this lovely community that PROGRESS has been made. The delay (apologies) was caused by the inheritance of an old vice and the realisation that I really should make my new (old) vice comfortable by building a shed around it. That being completed I have revisited the original idea for my Flow Hive:
My hive base is a recycled and slightly modified metal frame from a workshop drawer assembly:
The rear of the SBB/Hive Base has a removable screwed down section of 20mm angle for added stability:
I’ve made these little ‘cleats’ to position the hive snug on the frame:
The custom tray was made out of heavy gal plate and was a colossal pain in the rectum to fabricate…but works very nicely AND is robust enough for it to double as a honey jar holder during Flow harvest! Perfect.
The completed hive on the base looks snazzy…the stainless steel ‘lock-down’ latches are an indulgance on my part. We are in a high wind area and the idea of putting a tie-down around the whole shebang didn’t appeal to me:
The whole hive is set slightly off center on the stand as my next idea is to make a little custom Frame Stand to assist me during inspections etc.
Now then…where did I put those Bees?
Thanks all for looking!
…and a happy new year to you all.
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Wow, what a nice result! The hive looks great on top of it. Did you use Tung Oil on the wood?
Congratulations, I think your bees will have envious neighbours! 
Dawn
Thank you Dawn! Very kind of you.
Yes - the complete hive assembly has had three coats of thinned pure Tung Oil applied.
I like those over centre lock down latches. I imagine the stainless steel variety would be costly but they are available in galvanised steel as well. I guess the disadvantage of these kinds of latches is you need several for each super while you can tie everything together with a single strap/ratchet combination. My boxes sit on each other with two half sized besser blocks on top.
Understanding the local, weather, seasons and forage are all part of looking after your bees.
Some will have more niggles to sort out than others - Strong winds, Harsh winters, Pesticides on crops, Bears, Small Hive Beetle, Varroa, AFB, EFB, the list goes on.
What we need is to be vigilant, observe the hives and use IPM (Integrated Pest Management), but that doesn’t mean you have to go down the antibiotics and treatments route - How much or how little you do will depend on how hands on or off you want to be with your Bees
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That looks great Dragonfly nice job …
Cheers
Pete
That really does look great, and you’ve made some useful additions too. I’m also in a high wind area in WA (Windy Always). Actually, in true flow hive fashion, you could probably be on to a real winner with this if you were to throw together several thousand more of these to sell. I’d buy one off you
Too true.
I spent many an hour on the bike looking around to see what was around when we first moved here. It’s all livestock and wild hedgerows for miles. So many people gardening in towns spray every bug in sight I would wonder what was in any town honey.
That looks awesome. Let me ask you, as I cant tell from the pictures, but how are you securing the gabled roof??