Someone more knowledgeable can correct me if I’m wrong but: Is it possible for the bees to cap all the frames without room to store un-ripe nectar? Are the bees using some frames to store nectar and then moving it to somewhere for drying?
Hi Valli
At what stage would you consider someone still to be a new beek and someone with experience? At what time would it be concidered appropriate to say that I no longer am new? Eg 1-6 or 12+ months?
@BrucenKelcy
I’ve been going about 15 months with study courses, books etc I’ve had my bees a year, I’m still learning, I’m still a new Beek. Even beeks who have been semi commercial have something to learn - the chap who is doing some of our training and was semi commercial now retired - is still learning.
I’m doing my basic exams next month, there are plenty of things to learn. The biggest teacher is watching the weather, using intuition (that has saved my bees from starvation, varroa build-up, forage problems, all sorts).
Each year of bee keeping has something new to learn.
I found out my Sapphire is quite docile and accepting of most things 2 meters away and Emerald didn’t like my perfume (forgot I put some on in the morning) and was expecting thunderstorms on Sunday - 4 hours after checking the girls there was a storm - Emerald was non to happy with me - the perfume and the coming storm made the girls feisty. Yet 5 minutes before hand Sapphire was docile and welcoming - you can’t learn that from a book - it is like the differences in your children, brothers and sisters can be like chalk and cheese - I suppose what I’m trying to say is there is always something to learn.
My husband and I have around 35 years of beekeeping experience between us, but we still consider ourselves to be “new”. Every day, I seem to learn something new. Over time, our practices have changed a lot (for example we used to destroy queen cups, now we don’t) and I am sure that they will continue to change and evolve.
So to answer your question, the day you start keeping bees, you have some experience, but you will never be fully experienced, there is always more to learn and things to improve upon.
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Thank you for answering my question.
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It’s a bit like being asked how good a rider you are…
You know the girls who have been to horse camp for a week and are ‘Experts’?
I’ve been riding since I was 6. So 45+ years. I have owned my own horses, brought retiring racehorses off the track and turned them into trail horses. Trained for endurance rides. Once had the privilege of training with an Olympic dressage medalist. Can I brag and say he told me I had the most beautiful natural seat he had ever seen? THAT was a compliment that stuck with me ; -)))) He did NOT say I was the best rider he had ever seen ; -D
A month ago I was going to be riding on a ranch. I was asked to rate my experience. I said ‘out of shape intermediate’.
It’s like that; Relative LOL
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OK, looking for some info and could not find it so this post was the best one I could find to hi Jack or ask 
when is honey capped? or how long from when a cell is full is it capped? Does the frame need to be full befor it is capped?
Asking for I see my flow frame from the side window almost 80% full and don’t see anything capped yet. I want 
the to cap them. LOL
My uneducated guess may be that the honey may not be dried out enough. We’re having too much rain. Even during my last inspection I noticed a lot of uncapped nectar & honey in my frames. Hopefully the rain will stop after this weekend!
the bees will cap it when it is fully ripe (moisture content less than 19%) but if they are using it for energy then it wont get capped. Check your other frames closer to the middle as they may be fully capped. You may have to lift them to check.
I thnking your both correct. When “tjsutton” made a comment about rain I had to go look to see where “tjsutton” was from. And yes he’s also from Texas. We have gotten an extraordinary amount of rain this past month. I do not believe we have had more than 30 hours in a row without total overcast and not more than 2 days without torrential rain. I’ve been lucky enough to only have rain. Many others have had substantial flooding. So likely, the moisture content has not even been close to 19%. Starting Sunday humidity level outside his post to drop as well as a full solid week without rain, hooray 
I checked my frames today and i’ve got the same arc of empty cells left for drones in my flow super. I harvested one frame that was fully capped but couldnt harvest the others.
The frames used to be capped across the face and so the bees haved moved the honey deliberately.
I’ve moved one of the capped frames with an arc to the outside position to encourage them to fully cap it. Does anyone have ideas on how to encourage the bees to complete the centre frames?
OK, I have a question for you. Did this exact frame have drone larvae in it before? If so, did you clean out the cocoons? If not, you really need to - there may be left over pheromones labeling the cells for larvae.
If the frames were previously unused, or hot wash cleaned, and this is the first harvest since then, you might find that is normal. Are you using a QX? How many brood boxes do you have? How full are your brood boxes? It is possible that your bees think the queen needs more space, so they are leaving space for brood in the super, even above the QX - they don’t realize that she can’t get up there. If you have waxed all of the frames, or harvested them before, that shouldn’t be the problem.
I am having trouble in visualizing your problem. Perhaps some photos or a “for Dummies” description with lurid details would help. Sorry for being thick. I want to help, but I can’t quite resolve all of the possible parameters… 
@Dawn_SD Thanks for your reply…
I haven’t ever had drone larvae in the cells, I’ve also got a QX and I’ve harvested these frames before.
I left the flow super above a coverboard over winter, pretty full of honey, so when Spring started they were pretty much full frames and I just wanted to wait until the very end cells were capped before I harvested. It has taken a long time for them to get round to capping the end cells because I introduced empty frames into the two brood boxes to set back the hive to prevent swarming (I did a split from the hive when I found queen cells present in August). Last week they started capping the end cells and this week they had got to the point of capping the cells nearest the side window (i.e. the flow super was pretty much full).
So now they have capped the end cells and so I was confident I would be able to harvest them but I checked to make sure and they had robbed out the bottom of 3 of the central frames to create an arc for the queen (no nectar or honey in them).
I’m running two brood boxes and the flow super, which I thought would mean the risk of them creating the arc would be small, but so much for my plans! I didn’t have time to go into the brood boxes yesterday but may on the weekend. I was thinking one possibility would be that they’ve become honey bound in the brood boxes and so created the space up above?
As a test, I’ve moved one of the outside flow frames that was capped to the bottom to the middle to see if they create an arc again.
Presumably you have removed that now?
I agree with you, but the bees obviously don’t read the text books or the forum!
I doubt it, but an inspection would answer that.
That will be very interesting. Please let us know what happens.
I think what you are describing is one of the frustrations and challenges of beekeeping. You can’t “make” bees do what you want. All you can do is work with them, and work around their quirks. If it was my hive, I would harvest the completely capped frames, and move the “arc” frames to the outer edges for a week or two. If they still weren’t capping them, I would take them out of the hive and harvest over a drip tray, testing the honey with a refractometer. Hopefully putting them back in the hive in a different order after harvesting will meet with the pheromones and fix the capping pattern.
I wish you luck and will look forward to hearing what your bees do! 
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Hi Dunc, I believe the bees will fully fill the frames after you move them to the outside, but then they will still leave the arc of empty cells in the middle frames. They have left those cells empty for the queen to lay in, therefore you’d be good to harvest what honey is in the frames because there would be no unripe honey inside the arc. Best to do a visual check first, just to make sure.
I get that quite frequently at certain times of the year because I only use one brood box.
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Just an update on the empty arc in my flow frames…
The frames I moved to the sides were quickly filled and capped and the side frames I moved to the center are full with no empty arc. So the bees seem to have changed their minds.
So if you are facing this problem, I’d suggest moving the frames and see what the bees do.
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I like the idea of moving the flow frames around, mainly from the point of view that the frames are being inspected.
I have had my flow frames on for about 3 weeks now and the windows showed lots of activity for the first 2 1/2 weeks. Since then, the activity has decreased and only 1 cell is visibly capped through the side window. It does look as though honey is “glistening” in the other cells. Unfortunately, it appears that part of the frame next to the window was assembled improperly (see pictures) and the cells aren’t aligned. The bees seem to be ignoring that area because it would take too much wax and/or is impossible to conform to a hexagon. I am wondering if the activity decrease is normal. The humidity level has increased in the last few days, and maybe the girls have gone below to fan the queen? Other thoughts?
If you want to, you can put the Flow key into the upper slot and turn it in the left, middle and right parts. That will reset the misaligned cells without disrupting the drawn/filled cells. It worked pretty well for me.
They won’t cap it until the water content is less than 18.6%. If it is humid, it takes longer. Also, coming up to fall/autumn, I have found that they can be very slow to cap even ripe honey. Perhaps they know that they are going to need it soon?
Thanks Dawn. I tried the flow key when I first noticed it. It got most in line, but not these. Tried it a couple of times actually. This is best result. Next year! How often do you pull out and inspect the flow frames?