If you are getting excessive cross comb make sure the frames are pressed up firmly against each other in the box, ie. shoulder to shoulder, this ensures the correct bee space exists between frames and (should) limit the amount of cross comb.
Due to the spacing in the Flow Hive this may create space to the sides of the box, so be careful of cross comb here. @sciencemaster’s suggestion of bread knife to clean up the sides is great, you can also use a traditional uncapping knife. When cleaning up the sides, pull out one frame in from the edge, then move the edge frame sideways into the gap and out, this makes sure you don’t drag the bees against any bridge comb on the side of the box.
I would clean up as much cross comb as possible, this is easy to do if the cross comb is just built between top bars (common). If you run the hive tool down the edge of the top bar and ‘flick’ up the comb between you can extract it without too much damage. The problem I find with cross comb isn’t so much the sticking of frames together, it’s that it leaves an overhang that can squash/crush bees when adjacent frames are being removed or reinserted.
If you have concerns about them building up out of the top box, a basic hive mat is a good option. Or even look at making a ‘mercer mat’ which is a local invention http://www.actbeekeepers.asn.au/hints/mercer_mat.htm
Making hive mats has been on my to do list for about two years, I should probably cut some up and take some photos of the process
Traditionally, 1:1 is spring feed and 2:1 (sugar to water) is autumn/winter feed. Please use only white granulated sugar. Brown sugar can be toxic to bees from the molasses in it.
OK, well now we get down to the nitty gritty. I think the bees really don’t care that much. I would feed them 1:1, and if they take it very fast, maybe even switch to 5:3 - 5 parts sugar to 3 parts water. The reason is that sugar is sometimes not very soluble at 2:1, and 5:3 is close enough.
The received wisdom is that 1:1 stimulates comb-building and brood laying, because it is close to nectar concentrations of sucrose. I am not convinced that the bees really care. If you feed them, they usually do whatever they want with it - you can’t really control it that much. Given your climate, 1:1 should be fine.
I use 5 sugar: 3 boiling water. I generally make up 10kg worth of sugar at a time and I use cheap white sugar from the supermarket. Here’s the link to Michael Bush’s site. He gives loads of alternatives regarding syrup concentrations and types of feeders.
The technique I use to make up the syrup is close to what Michael Bush recommends. I measure 6litres of hot tapwater into a big boiler and turn on the gas flat out. As soon as it’s boiling, I tip in the sugar. Then I stir the bottom of the boiler with a flat ended wooden spoon thingy. The water will have gone off the boil by now because the sugar was relatively cold and the boiling point goes up as it dissolves. The flat stirrer lets me feel the grainy sugar on the bottom of the boiler. When I can’t feel it any more, the sugar has dissolved and I turn off the gas. This usually happens before the syrup has come back to the boil. I put the lid on the boiler and do something else for a couple of hours.
By now the syrup has cooled enough the be coward friendly and I usually syphon it into a plastic jerry can with a tap on it.
I build my feeders into the back of the base boards. This way I drown far fewer bees and feeding is less likely to attract robbers. I build a shelf 8mm below the tops of the side rails. The shelf extends 8mm into the hive and has 8mm high lips front and back. Together with the side rails, this makes a wooden tray as wide as the hive bodies and as far back as I want, usually about 100mm. When the hive body is sitting on top, about 60mm of this shelf sticks out behind the hive. I cut a piece of 12 or 15mm ply to fully cover this part of the tray. I bore a hole into this cover to take an inverted maple syrup bottle. I used to paint and seal the inside of the tray but I found enough syrup would seep into the wood to promote a black mould. Now I make inserts out of soft annealed, 0.3mm aluminium flashing. Michael Bush suggests using beeswax to seal these types of trays and I might try that with the next lot of base boards I make up.
You can, but it is a bit wide. You won’t necessarily get the comb centered in the frame unless you have a fairly narrow comb guide, like a popsicle (ice lolly) stick etc.
Ok another question :),I opened up my box yesterday and saw that the guy had the three frames pushed to one side instead of the middle that I read ,does this make a difference or should I center the frames ? And why are my bees so angry with me lol I hardly got a proper peek into the hive I had to put the lid back on and vacate .
If the other frames are completely empty, I would put the 3 occupied frames in the middle. You don’t have to, but I have better results doing this. The issue is that the hive walls are “cold”. Yes, I know you have a tropical Caribbean climate, but the brood nest likes to be at 32-35C, and I bet that even your tropical temps are below that most of the time. So the hive wall will be one of the coldest places in the hive. I never like to put brood next the hive wall. Just my humble opinion.
When I move bees, they are almost always more agitated for a couple of weeks. If they don’t settle down after that, I would consider re-queening. Meanwhile, make sure that you use smoke, and don’t inspect them more than once every 5 days. That will give them a chance to calm down.
Unless it’s a poly box and you’ve just made a small colony up then its the warmest place until the queen gets going
Even in my full size colonies the bees brood from the wall back
