Hello folks, just thought I would post a pic of my/Bees progress in the honey super. There are bees on each side of every frame. In the side window I see some bees going head first into the comb. They will sometimes just go in and come back out and sometimes they will go in and stay for quite awhile.
Is the cells looking all different sizes an optical illusion?
Yes it is I was holding my camera a an angle and moving while I took the pic.
I went back out and looked, they are pretty much all the same shape when you look directly at the cells but they are all split apart a little. Is that ok??
Do they fill in the small splits in the comb with wax before they start trying to fill with honey?
Does it look like I have a problem comb??
Interesting, but you don’t seem to have many bees on the frames.
Yes, when I open the window they are on there. And when I look in the other window I can see between all the frames and they are all over the place in there.
Does it look like that frame has been cracked open and needs to be closed or is this a normal look for a properly closed frame?
Keep in mind that that the super has only been on for 4 days. Every day that I look, I see more and more bees in h super.
Your frames and bee action look perfectly normal.
I agree with @Webclan, all normal. You may get more activity if there was burr comb or wax on the frames, but otherwise, it is looking good.
Thanks guys. Just went out and looked again and now there must be about 20 or so bees that have their whole body buried in cells. I’m not exactly sure what they are doing but it’s cool to see.
They are waxing the gaps. Just like auto detailing guys.
You can’t have any unfilled gaps or blemishes before you start using the final product! So they seal up the incomplete Flow cells, because they know they will leak if they don’t. You will see a difference over the next few days in that the frames go from clear plastic to looking more white in color. That is because the bees have applied virgin wax. Then you will start to see the glisten of nectar. Ah, heaven!
Wow, they are bees knees deep in nectar! Great photo, thank you.
Thanks Dawn and Bee Money, great posts, that’s exactly the information I was hopeing to hear. Now I know what to look for.
What timeframe would you estimate that it could be before I will be seeing the glisten of nectar in the cells? I know it depends on a lot of things, but ??
Me too! Progress on my Flow frames seems a little slow, but I know I’m just really excited
As you rightly say, it will depend on a lot of things. I personally began to see nectar in the cells about 2 weeks after putting the Flow super on top of the hive. They started to put nectar in the middle frames first, so looking through the side observation window, I couldn’t see it. I had to do a hive inspection and lift the Flow frames.
If you have a very strong hive, or a very intense nectar flow, they may even fill the super within 2 weeks. However, I think that is more likely if the super has been used before. Somehow they seem consistently to fill the frames much faster after the first time.
Some people found that the first year, the bees investigated and waxed the Flow frames, but didn’t actually store any nectar in them. However, the second year, they really took off.
Long answer to an apparently simple question.