Hiya Janet, welcome to the forum.
Although this is a Flow user forum there are many who either don’t have a Flow hive or have Flow and traditional so regardless of your set up we are here for the bees. 
Personally I would only buy genuine Flow frames however I have seen many clips of Flow frame copies being used and compared with the genuine item and from what I see there can be little difference between the two with harvesting and acceptance by the bees. Bee husbandry is the key.
That said, fake Flow frames are a copyright infringement and really shouldn’t really be bought from the supplier and the plastic can’t really be proven to be food safe however your case is different of course.
Anyway what’s done is done so let’s move forward, who knows later you may be in a position to compare the frames yourself.
Put aside the wood QX and get a metal one. Put aside the top and mesh inner cover and get a migratory lid. Paint the hive. You won’t be needing the super this year so get your colony building and when the colony is bursting next season who knows you may be able to split it, sell the split and use that money towards genuine Flow frames.
Dwelling on having fake Flow frames is counter productive and really, the fact that you’re keen on keeping bees should be celebrated. 
Get your bees and go for it, good luck.
Thank you so much for that information. I did have a look at them and sure enough I can see light, not much, but too risky to use. Now that truly sux heaps. Luckily I have a few weeks to sort this out, but I am already on the flow site and ordering the authentic flow frames. Thanks again for teaching me.
Hi Janet, welcome to beekeeping. The wood QX is actually bamboo. I’ve seen a few of them, however I haven’t heard any feedback on them, except for what @Semaphore just posted. If you google bamboo queen excluders, you’ll see lots of images of them & lots of them for sale. There could be good & bad in them also. Maybe the bees don’t chew or wear bamboo down. So therefore if they are built correctly, they may give a lot of years of service. There’s even good & bad metal QX’s as well. Plastic QXs are only good until they split or buckle badly. They seem to last about 18 months from my observations.
The flow frames are only an alternative method of harvesting the honey. It’s the actual keeping of the bees that’s the main challenge. Learning how to keep bees is almost like learning a new trade. There’s lots of learning to be done.
Some people think “I’ll get a flow hive, that’s an easy way to get into bees”. However from my observations, people are finding out that’s not the case. There are the odd people that start out with “beginners luck”, however that changes once the colony has swarmed, & or hive beetle take over the hive. Then they have to learn quickly how to manage the bees, or get an experienced beekeeper to do it for them.
Hi skeg,
There are so many aholes in the world and each time I venture out, the disillusionment is reinforced.
Luckily for people like you and that have been helping me in this forum have been a counter balance.
I gave up my professional life to be a care giver and this has been on my bucket list for so long now because of a lack of funds.
My ancestors on my fathers side immigrated to Australia from Poland on 2 sailing ships the 1st ship had ‘mum n dad’, 13 kids (all the age of 15 and under), and bees/hives.
They were apiarists.
The 2nd ship contained their worldly goods such as furniture etc.
‘Dad and the eldest son’ stayed back to wait for the 2nd ship, and ‘Mum and the rest of the brood’ set off North with a bullock dray full of hives (SA) to set up and prepare.
No roads in those days and my great great grand mother not only succeeded but did not lose 1 child on the way.
Anyway, I have always felt connected. Thank you for the welcome.
Hi Janet,
I’m sorry to hear about the troubles you’ve had with the copy hive. Please do pass on any info if you’d like us to assist in addressing this issue. We obviously try to stamp out these fraudulent companies wherever we can.
Regarding your comment about payment plans, I just wanted to let you know that we do have staggered payment options available through our online stores now.
Best of luck and please get in touch with us (info@honeyflow.com) if you need any support or assistance.
Hi Jeff,
Luckily the guy I purchased the livestock from is a kind person and a professional and when installing has been a well of information and help.
I am sure he will give me ongoing support.
I have trawled through hundreds of hours of ‘YouTube’ videos on everything to do with bee keeping/husbandry for many years and saved many that have worthwhile information to do more with the bees and keeping than the setting up the hives.
Thank you for teaching me, I am soaking all this information up like a sponge LOL
Hi Janet, you’re most welcome. One thing about this beekeeping: you never stop learning. Happy new year, bye the way. I don’t think we can squeeze one more day out of this year. I’m already in 2020, I keep thinking “last year”.
I wanted to take a photo of some honey frames I got this morning. Then I thought I can copy & paste some photos I uploaded early last year. Then I remembered it was early this year.
Hi Jeff, I would absolutely love to see some close-ups of the honey frames.
My apologies about the delay in my response, but a terrible event happened on New Years Eve, my mentally ill son (adult but like a child) fell from an overpass trying to see local fireworks take photos and fell.
So by 11pm on the eve I was in the Royal Melbourne Hospital looking down on my broken son. Since then he is out of a critical condition but still not good.
Michael is his name and we were doing this as a shared hobby.
He just loves honey sooo much.
Sorry for sharing too much info to strangers, but being a carer, I am a bit socially isolated.
That’s ok Janet, I’m sorry to hear about Michael’s fall.
Anyway, a late Happy New Year. I’ll see what I can find. I’m going out to rob in the morning, I might have some decent frames to show then. This is one from last year
This one also on the same day and was quite fat. I can’t rush the decapping when they’re like that.
cheers
Hiya Janet, A long time ago I’ve found that the best way to move forward is to talk about things and not bottle them up. Having dealt with and seen the system or rather the lack of system around mental health I feel your and Michaels pain. Thanks for sharing, keep up the good work.
It’s great that you’ve taken up this hobby I’m sure I speak for the rest of this community when I say we’re all behind you cheering you on, good luck. 
Your spinner is inside the house?! Get much mess?
Hi Snowey, after over 30 years of spinning honey inside the house, we’ve got it down to a fine art. The table gets messy. I put a towel on the tile floor where I stand because the odd honey drips off the steam knife onto the floor.
I told Janet I was going to rob this morning, however we have showers so I’m holding back. I picked the day with the best forecast & this is the day it decided to rain. @Peter48 will be pleased if he got the 15 or so mils like we got last night.
cheers
@SnowflakeHoney I do my extracting in my kitchen which has a tiled floor that I mop over with hot water when I’m finished. I used to use a throw down ‘painting’ plastic sheet but I’m getting better at it now with only a clean up needed. It is great to be able to extract with no bees about.
@JeffH It’s 9:15am and my rain gauge recorded 23mm of rain in about 24 hours. There was a time we would think of that as a good days rain but now I see it as so much more. I hope it is really wide spread rain that will really help with the drought.
Cheers
Hi Pete, that’s great news. It’s quite steady here now. I finished up going to the bees after the early showers cleared a bit. It held off long enough for me to get a mere 3 boxes out of 1/2 my hives. I’m just finishing breakfast now at 10 o’clock.
I promised a German lady who bakes a huge fruit cake for my birthday I’d have honey for her tomorrow. I couldn’t let ‘her’ down 
Happy birthday and hi to Wilma
I’ll catch up with you soon
Cheers
Thank You Peter it was a week before Christmas. She gave it to me a couple of weeks earlier & I only finished it 2 nights ago.