I noticed I’ve got what appears to be honey residing at the bottom. Is this normal or an indication of a leak? Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Lots of posts about it on the forum. Probably means that the exit hole in the Flow tube channel is blocked with wax or propolis. Pull out the round cap, and clean out the bottom rim just inside the cap with a toothpick or similar. There should be a little gap there, which lets honey drips be recycled by the hive.
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Sometimes just twisting the cap or loosening it a bit solves this. To clean out the leak back point, the easiest tool is the flow tube itself. If there is fermented nectar or anything in the collection channel, you can use a long bristle bottle or pipe brush or some cloth on the end of the flow key. You can also flush some water in there and let it pour back out of the tube to rinse, if needed.
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Hi @jeffhiseredu - this is normal and can happen at the beginning of using the Flow Frames when the bees are working on the cells. Before the bees have thoroughly completed the job of coating the inside of the cells with wax, nectar can drip through to the bottom.
This is another reason for why the honey leak back point was created which is a little gap behind the honey through cap (as Dawn and Alok mention). Make sure this is unblocked from wax and propolis and the hive has its slight tilt backward so this nectar ca slowly drip through this gap and into the brood for the bees to recycle.
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