How to get to the brood box?

Beekeeping - Basics
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I really want to start keeping bees and I know I have alot to learn. This forum look amazing for that but first I am trying to figure out if I can physically do this. When you have your flo-hive set-up with the brood box and super, how do you get to the brood box to inspect it? Does it slide out like a drawer? Do you have to lift the flo-super off? Isn’t that heavy especially when it gets honey in it? My husband is disabled and can’t help.

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Hello and welcome to the Flow forum!

You take the roof off, then you have to move the Flow super box off too. It is too heavy for me to lift when it is filling up, so I have a neat trick. I put an inner cover flat next to the hive, then put an empty deep box onto the inner cover. The inner cover under the empty boxes helps to prevent crushing bees. You can then lift the frames out of the Flow super one by one and put them into the empty box. When you have moved half out, the box will probably be light enough to lift. If not, you keep going until it is. When you are done with your inspection, you just move them back again, being careful to keep them in the same order that you took them out. I actually do this with brood boxes too. It is the only way I lift them on my own.

You can do this, if I can! :wink:

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Wow thank you. I’m going to join our local bee association and see if I can make a friend to do a trial inspection this way. I have been to a couple of meetings as a sit-in and I know a few members are using flow-hives.

If Flow-Hive is watching forums I think this is a new idea to add to their hive design. Make an easy to get to brood box. I’m not an engineer but seems like they could do something where you turn something to jack up the super a tiny bit, then you can slide the brood box out on a drawer or something. Oh please make this :sparkling_heart:

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Hi @LadyEvelyn and fellow ‘Eva’ :smile: I use Dawn’s trick all the time, but I love your slide-out brood frame idea and think Flow should definitely develop it! There are hive designs that open at the back and frames can be pulled out horizontally - Slovenian, maybe? Integrating these with the Flow system would be super :wink:

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Here it is!

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Cool! I will check that out. Thank you so much!