Thankfully I was home to catch my own bees!!!. they have been in a deep brood box with frames and are building them out nicely. We saw the queen tonight when we took off the top cover, she was under it. This hive looks good. Now over to our original bees. Here are some pics of the frames. we were unable to find a queen. it looks like they are going to hatch one of their own accord. lol. several queen cells. No fresh larvae. many drones…check it out and any feedback is welcome…
Ermm, many queen cells. 
What to do next? Here is some reading:
http://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Swarm-Control-Wally-Shaw.pdf
Make splits with all of those beautiful cells! (Disclaimer: I’m a bee hoarder).
looks like lovely queen cells that will be emerging any time over the next 8 days or so. Also looks like you still have quite a lot of bees in the original hive- so everything looks pretty well. Apparently it is a good idea to leave that hive alone for the next 18 days or so while those queens hatch and come out and mate. Unless you want to remove a few frames with queen cells on them and make a split.
Given that there are a lot of queen cells and bees- it is a distinct possibility that you will have some secondary swarms - so be aware of that and have another box ready perhaps just in case.
Thank you. I have another brood box to add. Good Idea to add now to give more room or wait. Unfortunately, I can’t do another colony.
If you have 80% of the cells in use for brood and stores and the frames are averaging 80% covered by bees then now it is time to add a second brood box, if that is normal for you location and climate, long cold winters is where a second brood box is needed, but I would check for local info.
Maybe you should also have a box ready to collect a swarm if the hive goes in that diection. I would not be surprised if those queen cells are capped.
Not sure what you mean,
what is the reason you can’t do it?
Regards
Someone in your area might want to buy a nice local nuc @Rye😉
@Rye A valid point Eva has made, there is a growing number of people wanting to get into bee keeping that a few years ago had not even considered it. Some of that is because of the popularity of the Flow Hive and also environmental reasons. Selling nucs is a way to recoup some invested money in bee keeping.
Regards
It’s funny you mentioned that Peter. Only last night a new traditional beekeeper was here grabbing a bucket of honey from us. He started off with a flow hive. He bought two colonies from me a couple of years ago, I’d forgotten that he started out with a flow hive.
The Flow Hive suits some people and not others, the jury is still out with me. But the flow hive certainly started a lot of people into bee keeping and that is a positive. My apiary is set up for both traditional and the flow super and I can say now that getting back into bee keeping is a positive for me, regardless of which way I ultimately go.
Nights are cooling and the bees are not flying till about 9am but foraging very well.
Cheers
G’day Peter, cooling alright. I’m thankful for our fire for these couple of months.
I asked this bloke how his flow frames worked. He said the bees were very slow to use them, so he removed them & stored them. He credits flow for getting him started into bees.
I agree the bees are slow to use them for the start, I am thinking I will decide after 2 years use if the Flow Supers are right for me or not. I think any shorter time is not a true evaluation, unless I get glaring results one way or the other which I don’t really expect.
Cheers
This bloke must have had glaring results from the start & probably gave up too soon. I don’t remember if when he bought the 2 colonies from me whether he started off with 2 flows or 1 flow & 1 traditional.
