New beekeepers question - possible leaking frame?


Evening all. Advice sought - the frame pictured looks like it is leaking honey into the chamber. In the year we have had the girls the left hand side of this frame never seems to fill and in the last month the chamber at the bottom is filling with honey. We did our very first harvest two weeks ago but did not draw from this frame. Is it leaking? I’ve watched the Flow Hive wire retentioning video - should we empty the frame before we remove if this is the case? Thank you in advance.

It is perfectly normal. Your leak back port at the bottom of the channel by the cap is probably blocked. Take the cap off and clean the hole and the bees will clean up the honey as it drops through.
Sometimes just spinning the cap is enough to open the hole again. When I had flow hives I made a point of spinning each cap every week to keep the channel draining.
Remember too that the hive is on a tilt backwards, which runs the honey to the rear and makes the channel look fuller than it actually is.

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Thank you. I’ll do that tomorrow :slight_smile:

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Hi Tim, just reading your reply. Is it time to change the info on your profile?

Yeah possibly.
Been thinking maybe I should leave the forum being that I feel like a bit of an intruder now.
I still love the product just outgrew it.

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No way mate, you’re still providing valuable input. The majority of the topics don’t even relate to extraction. As you know beekeeping is very much locational and the more members in more locations helps everyone on this forum.
Thank you for your input. :+1:

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Hi Tim, I second @skeggley 's comment. If anyone’s an outsider it’s me, however I’m happy to help Flow owners where I can. Plus I’ve learned a lot myself through being on this forum. One example was a video uploaded by @Semaphore which showed an easy way to introduce nurse bees to a hive.

Another tip I got was the importance of keeping an entrance smaller, rather than larger. Large entrances would have contributed to a lot of chalk brood issues that I experienced in the past.

Another topic is “slatted racks”, which I haven’t built, however I know that a slatted rack would solve the issue of a gap above bottom bars.

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Thanks skeggley.
I’ll stick around a bit longer but if you get sick of me feel free to tell me to buzz off. (Sorry puns like that might see me gone sooner than I thought :joy:).

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Hi there after harvesting and resetting the frame leave the channel open for an hour or more so you get as much out of the channel as possible.When you place the cap back on leave it very loose so the remnants of honey can drain.
As said it is quite normal to get some honey left in the channel but because the bees can’t clean that area we clean it first. We place a cut down drain tube in and use hot water and a very long bottle brush. The cut down tube is to plug the gap so no water gets in the hive.
Doing an inspection a week or two before lets you see the fullness of the frames before harvesting. The rear doesn’t always indicate the true capacity of that frame.
Good luck.

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Thanks so much Gaz, we will give that a go. Much appreciated :+1:

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