Overwintering for first time

Flow Hive
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Yes, splitting would slow down honey production somewhat, but in a strong nectar flow you can still see a harvest depending on the timing.

Funny, here in PA we think of VA as the South :wink: - But it’s true that our weather can be pretty similar. Regarding filling up Flow frames, our latitudes are not the issue though, there are folks in Northern US, Europe and Canada using them with no problem. The issue is that there is a first step of waxing up the cells before they’re ready for nectar storage. Once that’s done, they’re primed and ready to go for subsequent seasons. With a hybrid you’d have several deep frames that the bees would still have to build comb on, even if you use foundation - so you’ll end up with the same ‘first step’ before honey can be produced anyway. So, if you overwinter successfully you may be able to put your Flow super (or any kind) on pretty early, as long as you’ve done swarm management first.

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Thanks Eva. NOW you’ve got me excited about Spring again! Can we just skip winter this year? :face_with_monocle:

I’ll put my Flow frames out earlier this year in the Spring and hopefully I’ll have some better luck!

Can’t wait for Spring again! :honeybee:

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43

Here in Hobart, Tasmania, we have cold and windy winters (not as cold as yours I imagine). Here we have two brood boxes to help the bees to get through winter. The upper box should be full of honey at the beginning of winter. i.e. the Flowbox is used to gather SURPLUS honey beyond what the bees will need to get through winter. I harvest from the Flowbox and remove it for winter.

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Hi and welcome TassiDi :blush:

How was your season? Spring is here in full force and I just put a Flow super on one of my hives! Yesterday I peeked and saw some tiny nectar deposits in cells of two of the frames :star_struck:

@BKaterina how did your colony make out this winter?

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Hi Eva,
I have just harvested from the Flowframes - I got 1.75L of nectar (not many cells were capped). This is better than the year before (it had been a difficult season for the bees), so I am pleased with this result. I will keep this in the fridge for eating. I hot rinsed the frames and will store them away over winter.
I’ll let the bees calm down for a few days, and choose a warm day to do my final autumn inspection, to make sure there is plenty of honey in there (I think there will be).
And will attach some insulation (thanks for your ideas on that).
Di

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I just put the honey super on one of my flow hives a couple days ago. Thinking it would be a quick and simple process, I suited up, but didn’t bother with smoke. Those bees were crazy mad at me. When I popped the wood cover off to put the queen exclude on, they all came flying out at me and would not leave me alone. I ended up getting stung a few times through my bee suit. Never experienced that before! Yesterday I was working outside my house and I still had a few bees chasing me down, even though I’m 200-300 feet away from the hives.

I’ll be putting another honey super on my second flow hive later today. I did a quick hive inspection last week, and they are out of room in the brood box and lots of larva, so the population is ready to explode. But I will bring my smoker with me this time.

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If that hive was boiling with bees then getting the queen excluder and box on without smoke may be a challenge.

The inner covers on my hives get tightly stuck down and pulling them up after a long interval between inspections is relatively slow. Also, scraping the top of the frames free of burr comb, propolis, and drone brood so your queen excluder fits on is also helpful and avoids casualties.

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I have a very hot hive too - same thing happened to me when I supered last weekend! I chalked it up to storms coming, but honestly I’m not so sure now. Yesterday I was in back, looking at the cells through the window (they’re getting filled :grinning:) and a couple guards chased me off. I got stung just near my armpit and — for about two hours afterward, a bee kept flying around my bedroom window! I swear it was the other guard and she was coming for me…

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Ok, I feel better now that it doesn’t just happen to me. I see all this pictures on instagram of people with bee beards, and I think, there’s no way I’d try that with my bees! I forgot to mention that last weekend I transferred the frames from a langstroth box to the flow brood box, and that’s when I noticed the over population. So between the recent disruption of the transfer, and me jiggling the wooden lid to free it up for the honey super, I’m guessing they’ve had enough of me for awhile!

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Yes, I had a look in before supering so I’m hopeful that mine will settle too, with a stretch of quiet. Have to resist the urge to peek at the cells for awhile!

Just a heads up about your colony being so populous - depending on what stage of swarm buildup they’re in, adding a super might not avert that. Did you check for queen cells when you did the transfer?

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Good afternoon Eva and so nice to hear from you!

And…so sorry for the delay in responding!

In March, I did the sugar roll test and detected mites, so I treated both hives for 14 days. I just removed the medicine today and discovered that one hive is doing outstanding, but the other hive looks terrible.

Overall, I believe that me bees did really well this winter and I put on two Flow hybrid supers on my two hives in early March (I converted one super into a hybrid and bought another hybrid) before I treated them.

It really seems that we must be having a great flow right now because in the good hive, I have one flow frame FULL of honey and the other two frames next to it, 1/2 full - I can’t believe it!!! Looks like I will be getting some honey soon!

However, unfortunately, in my other hive (located two feet away, there is no honey in the Flow hybrid super and the hive is doing terrible. There is no brood, no eggs and several opened queen cells and lots honey being produced. I believe the hive lost their queen and is trying to rebuild, but I’m not sure. What is really troubling me is that most of the cells in the lower brood box look like they may be infected with AFB, but I’m not sure. I’m really concerned right now with this hive. I will be checking it in another week to see if I can find a queen or eggs, but I really concerned the hive may be infected with AFB. Since I’m a new beekeeper (3 years now), I’m not experienced to know if its actually AFB, but that is what I suspect just by the looks of the cells…and lack of any capped brood.

If it turns out to be AFB, then I guess I will be burning and destroying that hive. I’m really sad right now. Please feel free to call me if you would like to discuss Eva, thanks.

Anyway, I hope you have a great flow up there and enjoy your Flow supers! I’m really excited about my good hive, but saddened by my bad hive.

:honeybee: Best,

Cameron
703-455-2250 (home)
202-731-5409 (cell)

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Hi Cameron, great to hear about your Fsuper! Mine is also filling up already :star_struck:

About your AFB suspicion, here’s an article with lots of info and a description of how to do the matchstick test for it:

The other, more likely scenario could be that your colony simply swarmed once or twice and is between queens.

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Thank you so much Eva, that was most helpful. I will open up that bad hive later this week when the warm weather comes back and do the stick test. I truly hope that I have your other scenario where my bees are between queens. When I checked them yesterday, they were very active and seemed healthy, but a little more aggressive than my other hive.

I will let you know what I find out Eva and I may perhaps recruit some local assistance for a second opinion.

:honeybee: Best,

Cameron

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