Must a Deep Be Completely Filled with Frames?

Looking for advice. This past weekend I finally installed a nuc into the deep, the deep I assembled that came with my Flow kit. I’m assuming I received an 8 frame deep. From the nuc, I installed five frames of bees, all in the center of the deep and in same order as found in the nuc. Then I slowly moved them together to attend to bee space. I then put two empty frames on one far side, and it seemed that two more should fit at the other side, but only one would fit. I went ahead and closed the hive. I’ll inspect in a week but should I be concerned about the space that’s empty and almost the size of a frame?

Sunny,

After you install your Nuc frames you add enough to be a total of eight frames in your new Flow-hive brood box. Mine is a 10 frame Langstroth because mine is no a flow so I added the five Nuc’s center then added two additional to one side n three additional to the other side of the 5 Nuc frames for a total of 10 frames. Here’s how I do the spacing using a 5 frame new Nuc I built. Frames shoulder to shoulder n equal on outside to both walls.

I push all frames tightly together shoulder to shoulder then center the entire group with equal leftover space on both outer wall frame to side of frames. I’m not having any trouble with this spacing at all. Should be similar with the Flow eight frame setup too.

Good luck n enjoy,

Gerald

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Jerry is right, you have an 8-Frame Langstroth box, but Flow decided to go with the upper end of widths for the box. Eight frame Langs are anything from 13.5" to 14" wide, and the Flow ones are 14". That means you have extra space by the outer frames. One of my hives used this as an excuse to build a crazy flat mushroom shaped piece of comb, with a stalk separating it from the surface of the foundation. If they continue to do this, I will put a follower board into the hive like this:
http://www.mannlakeltd.com/beekeeping-supplies/product/WW-155.html

If you don’t do that, the hive can get very messy when the poorly supported comb falls off, or you have to remove it from the hive wall to do an inspection. I hate to waste bee effort, so I am keeping an eye on mine.

The other thing to emphasize, as Jerry said, is please do make sure you put the frames tight together in the middle of the hive to start with. If you don’t all kinds of creative things can start up, and if the bees make a lot of extra deep cells to compensate for wide spacing, you may end up with more drones than your hive really needs.

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Gerald,
Thanks so much. Based on your good advice I will, upon first inspection next weekend, adjust the 8 frames in the Flow deep to allow for equal spacing on both sides. Your photo was also very helpful.
Thanks again,
Bryan (aka SunnyBryan)
Rathdrum, ID

Dawn,

Thanks to you as well as Gerald (Jerry). I have one more question to pose and I think I’ll do that right away.

Bryan

Gerald (and Dawn as well),

I have a second question and I’ll ask the both of you, and whoever else may want to be included. In addition to my Flow Hive, I have a Langstroth 10 frame. It has the metal on the roof as opposed to the Flow’s gabled, wooden roof. Yesterday was fairly hot over here in N. Idaho and the Langstroth bees seemed to be coming out in mass to cool themselves. I presume this from what I’m reading in the books. There were only a few bees outside the Flow Hive at the same time. It occurred to me that the flat, metal roof could be conducting heat on the inside. But I see almost nothing but metal roofs from the beekeeper supply sites, except for one which shows how to build a wooden, gabled roof. Could it be that such a gabled roof would be beneficial to the bees relative to the metal covering that came with the Langstroth kit?
Thanks again,
Bryan

Bryan,

All my flat roofed Langstroth hives have metal covers to help preserve the wood n prevent rain leaking thru as they age. . Only my Nuc’s with migratory tops are just wood. . Gabled roofs are pretty/fancy but if the inner lid hole is left unscreened or open you can run into some creative extra comb in your attics :wink:. We had metal on ours here even in the 1950’s n 60’s.
Maybe Dawn can add to the metal n heat because she lives on a much toastier part of the world than here in the Puget Sound region. Moist is our enemy rather than HEAT ! :sunny:

Hope my pics n notes help. Dawn n others will jump in here with their 2-cents worth I’m sure. That’s what makes this on-going forum helpful n work. We all come from different backgrounds, experiences n often climates.

Good luck n please pass the hot biscuits with honey ! :yum:. Gerald

Hey Gerald,

Thanks yet again. I’m brand new to this, just installing my two nuns this past Saturday morning. I will be eager to see if the Flow bees are making, is it called “burr” comb, in the attic of the Flow gabled roof? The top board, with the oval hole, is separating the roof from the bees.

In two days I’m now feeding another pint of sugar water to each hive (mason jar, upside down on a store bought platform, through the front entrance). Each hive has half a pollen patty (not sure if they’ve consumed some or all of it yet). Lots of flowers and flowering trees underway over here. I assume all is well. We shall see.

Thanks again,
Bryan

It really shouldn’t make that much difference. Bees are well-able to fan ventilate the hive, whatever the weather. Did your 10-Frame Langstroth start with more bees in the nuc? One of mine was definitely stronger than the other. More bees = more heat, and they will be more prone to bearding outside in hot weather.

LOL! :smile: Don’t you just love auto-correct, not? I hope your installation was holy successful. :blush:

I would definitely cover that hole with something. Either insect screen or #8 hardware cloth (taped to the inner cover with duct tape) or even a tile or flat stone. You could even put a bee escape in it/over it, but the bees tend to propolize them into ineffectiveness, so you have to dismantle them if you ever need it to work.

Thanks Dawn,

As to your question of more bees in one nun vs. the other, I think you may be correct. I shouldn’t say anything, but as I gazed on to one of the heavenly laden frames I could swear I saw the holy image of…no, wait, it was Elvis! Next time I’ll take a picture of it and go viral, or is it bacterial.

And I’ll take your advice on covering the holes in the inner covers. What are those holes for anyway? I need to read up on that.

Thanks again,
Bryan

Two main purposes, a feeder or a bee escape. If you put a bee escape into the hole, it turns the inner cover into a kind of one way valve for bees. In traditional harvesting, you can put the bee escape inner cover below your capped super of honey, wait for a day or two, and now your capped honey super has (almost) no bees in it. I have done this a lot for traditional hives, and it usually works well, as long as your bees are not too swift with the propolis which blocks up the mechanism… :blush: