Honey Super for Winter

I am new to beekeeping. In fact, I’m getting my first Nuc tomorrow. I have a mentor with a local Beekeeping Assoc., but they are not familiar with the flow system. They told me I might need a separate honey box for winter as the bees may not be able to access honey from the Flow Frame. Is this correct? I also purchased a second brood box on their recommendation along with extra frames.

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Hello and welcome to the Flow forum!

Yes. In your climate, you will need double brood boxes, or at least one deep and one medium. You should fill the second brood box before you add the Flow super. I think @Eva uses a deep and a medium (she is in Montgomery, PA), but 2 deeps would work too and simplifies the types of frames you need to buy.

Sounds like you have found a good mentor! :wink: Everything about keeping bees in a Flow hive is the same as in a traditional Langstroth. Only the harvesting method is different. So on everything else, you should follow local advice and best practices. :blush:

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Hi Myke and welcome to the forum! I’m a fair bit east of you here by Philly but I bet you can hear the birds in the background as I type this at 5:30am :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: Speaking of Dawn, she’s right that our climate is prob about the same and having either a double deep or a deep + medium regular Lang box setup is best.

Leaving a Flow super on in winter being a bad idea that your local folks were cautioning you about is mainly to do with the fact that a queen excluder is used. Queen excluders do just that, posing the risk that as the colony moves up, the queen can’t follow and remain central in the cluster, and could thus freeze or starve.

Some beeks in less harsh winters will remove the QX and leave the Flow super on as winter stores, or so I gather - but then the risk becomes about the queen laying in it as spring approaches and once the honey is consumed. So, come fall in our region, off it goes to the shed!

Oh - and happy nuc pickup day!! Let us know how it goes :star_struck::honeybee:

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