Hello! We bought 2 Flow hive 2+, purchased 2 nucs in May after my husband and I attended bee school in person however we are still feeling a bit lost.
we lost one nuc within 2 weeks. Thousands of dead bees in the hive. The yellow board was just full of them. The man we bought the bees from was kind enough to give us a replacement hive in June. It seems to be doing well as a single brood box however the yellow tray is full of mold. They have 2 frames left to fill (we have 10 frames, the nuc came with 5).
Our other colony from May is confusing us haha! It covers the box almost every day, especially in the evening. It almost looks like an ocean wave at the bottom where they are all hanging on to each other. I didn’t see any swarm cells during the inspection. A local bee mentor told us to put the super on when they filled all of the initial 10 frames in June. They went up there but wouldn’t take to it for weeks. I rolled melted beeswax on the super frames and sprayed a small amount of sugar syrup on them like flow hive recommends. They finally took to it but none of it is capped. I thought I’d give them a couple weeks but upon checking today, I think they ate it all instead. Is this normal?
We live in Ohio where it gets really cold winters. I’m only concerned about helping them through the winter. Should I add a second brood box right now and take the super off? It just feels crowded. Should I give the other colony a pollen patty in August to prepare for the winter or just keep feeding 1/2 gallon of sugar syrup each week? What do we do with any honey left that’s not the right capped moisture content? Just harvest it and freeze it for them for the spring? I know we can’t keep it on and need to properly store it to prevent moths. I feel like the bee mentors we got just really hate the flow hive setup and the recommendation is always “get rid of them and go the traditional route so it’s not over complicated..”
we’ve invested about $3,500 into this and we really just want to see success with the flow hive for both us and the bees.
I know I asked a lot of questions but I’d appreciate any feedback and help. Thanks in advance!
Hi neighbor and welcome.
We are are just North of you in Logan county.
Did you go to COBA bee university at OSU? If so are you jointing at Scottslawn apiary? This is really close to your location in case you are not familiar with it. Either way the gentleman that takes care of it is great and I would recommend maybe stop and talk to him(Rich). Anyway nice to meet you neighbor.
We are on our 4th (or 5th) season now.
In our first year we prioritized a strong hive going into winter and added a second brood box instead of putting a super on. Needless to say no honey that harvest that first year. Same story year two, we prioritized having to full brood boxes to give the girls best chance to make it through winter. No honey harvested second year either. Third year we hit gold!
to me I think the sooner you get a second box of frames filled with comb it’s going to reap more rewards and flexibility moving forward as it will allow you to split a hive and then a queen could immediately lay into the filled with comb frames, or catch a swarm or whatever, if you have built out frames you have more options. Just my opinion.
IMO you have to decide you want prioritize two filled out brood boxes / frames or you want to prioritize honey harvest. (If the bees want to make wax and fill out frames I’d let them - at some point that will slow down…we are still in a good nectar flow so I’d let them make wax if they want too because soon they will stop and then you have no chance/choice)
even with double brood boxes on all our hives, we have only been successful to harvest when the hive is strong and bursting…when we have had weaker hives with two deeps, they never got anything capped in the super. Our story is success with two full brood boxes(strong hive that wants to be split or swarm). When that has not been the case we have not produced in the super for harvest.
My recommendation is to play the game based on where you want to be in 6-12months.
personally I think priotizing strong colony will yield a sweet result and more options/flexibility to be able to make splits or increases. You will get there either way but it’s a question you want honey first or flexibility first IMO.
good luck
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