Hi there - this is the end of first season with my Flow hive in Surrey England. Despite scoring the honey frames in the brood box to try to encourage the bees to make honey in the Flow frames, I had very little success - 4 jars in total.
I brought my hive home late summer ready for the heather and was advised to use Langstroth frames as the heather honey doesn’t flow from the Flow! So I added a Langstroth super and also fed sugar syrup to ensure plenty of supplies. The Langstroth frame is empty - and I went through quantities of syrup and also watched bees laden with pollen enter my hive.
I assume the brood box is full of stores - which is great - but I’m nervous this will continue next Spring when I put the Flow super back on top.
Can anyone please help with this?
My other problem is propolis - and this may be linked to the issue above. No-one at the Apiary from where I moved my bees has such ‘sticky’ bees! They make life very difficult as they propolise everything - and really thickly. It makes inspection really tricky and much more intrusive than I want…
First. If you put your flow super on early your bees will move the syrup up there so that the queen has room to lay. Result syrup in your honey.
There is no need at all to score the brood honey stores. You are trying to force the bees and they are not playing. They obviously had just the right size of nest in the brood box. Once the brood frames are solid brood the bees will put stores into any box above them. The general rule is to not super till you have 80% of the frames filled with brood.
As for sticky, that’s genetic. Get Carnica.
If you do though they will need a second brood box before any super