Leaking during harvest

Flow Hive
1

I have two flow hives. One was a premium full hive and I’ve had two neat and tidy harvests from it.
The second one was just the flow frames on another company’s brood box, and this is its first year. After a clean harvest from the first hive I moved onto the second. Now I’m dealing with a total mess and feeding frenzy.

It looks like the honey is leaking down the face of the box underneath. I have a wall of bees and wasps. Chaos!
Ive closed all the frames, and put the little caps on. Still leaking. Badly. I’ve got everyone in the neighbourhood at my house now.
My plan is to wait until full dark and they all go to bed. Then lock them in and Then harvest. At night, in the dark. (Red light).

I did notice that bees were able to get out from under the frames earlier. There is a major gap there, that I tried to block with a sliver of wood. This gap is all across the bottom of the frames.
At this point, the sun is still up and there is a wall of bees and wasps on the flat surface under the flow frames. It’s obvious that I’m losing all the honey.
Most of it the honey was uncapped, but so was the honey in the other hive. And last years too. But it’s time to close things down where I am (northern Scotland) and put the flow frames to bed for the winter.

Any advice? Clearly the frames weren’t in the box properly.

2

Hi Sarah, so sorry you’re dealing with such a mess! I think finishing your harvest after dark is a good idea. To stave off further loss and help calm the chaos I would throw a damp beach towel over the hive. I might even suit up and gently rinse the front face with a low pressure stream from a hose first?? Hard to say if that sounds like a good idea without being there…but a thought! Good luck!!

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That’s sorta what I did also try. I used my bee brush and scrubbed off the wall with some water and vinegar (to deter the bees). But the honey is constantly leaking.
I’m not too happy. All was fine until I started to harvest this morning.
But on the bright side, least the bees were using the frames, and all the wasps are helping themselves to the leak instead of trying to sneak in the front to steal my bees’ winter stores. (On normal langstroth frames.)

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