I sing to my girls and swear at the pests. Anyone watching me probably thinks I’m nuts.
But it’s hard to believe they don’t love me back after letting me do this to them:
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I am SO glad you joined this forum. I like your style! 
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I’m glad I found this forum, I feel like I hunted the whole dang internet looking for a beekeeping forum where a hobby beekeeper could ask dumb questions.
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This is the place 
20 characters to post…
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And of course, today, I pulled out the bottom board intending to take some pictures, no larva today, not beetles… but I saw some kind of smallish grey moth… if it’s not one thing it’s another…
I declare War.
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Lesser wax moth. We all have them and they love the sliders in the lower slot. That is why my slider is always in the upper slot. 
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There are no dumb questions
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Well, #%@&!
I found three of these on the bottom board today (no moths or larva though).
scurries off to reread shop towel instructions
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At least I’m sure what they look like now
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Yes, so nice to know what a hideous parasite looks like, isn’t it!
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Arsehole bugs!
I’d rather never know what they look like, but now I do know.
I can’t get into the hive until Sunday, but we will be Doing a Thing then.
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New Problem. I don’t know if I watched a mating flight or a mini swarm from one of my hives because they flew back to the hive and did not make it to the entrance but tried to get into the hive from the side of the Flow 1 bottom board with the coragated plastic board. In my worry they would all walk over the board and get cooking sprayed I removed it. The bees are now are underneath the hive for 2 days. I thought they would march in and join the others but they have not.
I’ve tried looking for a queen to determine if she is stuck underneath the hive but that didn’t work. Sigh and so I suppose that I will have to take the whole hive apart and shake them back into a brood box. I’m hoping that works.
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Sounds like a practice swarm, Martha 
I’ll be keen to hear how you deal with it & how it goes!
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I never knew they practiced!
They certainly do on occasion. Sometimes they change their minds mid-flight because they can feel bad weather coming. Or sometimes queenie hasn’t been slimmed down enough to take to the air. If she doesn’t go with them, they usually come back.
If you saw them leave that hive, then returning them might be the best thing. However, I would inspect for queen cells first. 
If there are queen cells, you may want to split instead.
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Well, I took the hive apart and looked at the bottom board and I couldn’t see a Queen though she may have been there. Perhaps a virgin? I shook the bees into the brood box. I think my hive swarmed and I missed it. Very little brood and the bees are filling the nucleus of the hive with nectar. I found 2 queen cells capped. I’m really stumped as to the next move with no eggs, no new brood but to wait and see what happens next. Life is so much better with an active queen!
Hi
I was preparing to carry out my first varroa treatment with my newly purchased vapouriser so I thought I’d check that I was set up to the operation. Battery ready, Oxalic acid sorted, towels and safety kit ready to go. Then I offered up the vapouriser to the hive entrance to see how it fitted and suddenly everything go put on hold as it wouldn’t fit through the hive entrance as it was about 2-3 mm too thick.
Have a mess floor to the hive but the inspection tray is plastic, so I was wondering if there was some bit of flow hive magic video somewhere that would show me how this can be done.
I’m using a Varrox 12V 150W vaporiser with an 8 frame Flow Hive 2 Araucaria on a flow hive stand with a ventilated floor. I don’t want to crack the hive or disturb the cluster. I live in the UK so would like to get this done soon before it turns too cold.
Any help would be gratefully received.
Hiya Bruce, I don’t know if there’s a vid or not, but I think you could do as @Dawn_SD and others do and put a piece of aluminum flashing on the tray where the end of the vaporizer will sit, as heat protection.
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Allow me to clarify a bit. I don’t have a Flow hive 2. Mine is a classic.
As @Eva wrote, I bought a roll of 20 inch wide roofing flashing, then folded a piece so that when doubled it was rigid enough to support the Varrox. This was then cut to fit so that it slides into the slot for the core flute slider in my hive, just below the mesh floor. The core flute is not in the hive at that point, because I think the Varrox would damage it. I imagine it might also damage the plastic tray. I have never seen a Flow hive 2, so I feel unable to give exact advice on how to adapt my concept.
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My flashing works better on flow 2. Slide out the plastic and slide in the other. I bought unpainted sign tin from Ace Hardware and took some tin snips to cut the perfect size. It works great and is thick enough to give good tinsel strength to the weight of the OA wand. It also works great with my new electric OA vaporizer gizmo. I can’t think of the name of the unit.
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