Perth (WA, AU) Flowhives and honey flow

[Detto]

I agree mate, it doesn’t look like Marri nectar to me either and I’ve never seen it before!

I remember a while ago reading somewhere on here that someone noticed the bees depositing water in the flow frame cells and posted a photo… I’ll try find it.

Ah here it is:

Bees in extreme heat

Here’s a couple of pics which show the importance of having a good supply of water close and handy for the girls. This is a brand new super which hasn’t been on this young colony for long. I have noticed how they put water in the cells on hot days. It’s clearly visible as water in a brand new frame but hard to distinguish from nectar in previously used frames. [IMG_20210110_192640] [IMG_20210110_184259] [IMG_20210110_184244]

This took me a good while to find digging through the archives and yes you are right! @JeffH makes the same call back in Jan '21 and you even liked it too!

@JeffH

I would argue that they’re storing nectar/honey in the honey cells. One of the colors of honey is white, on the extreme end of the light colored honey, which looks almost like water.

They certainly do deposit water, however I don’t believe it’s in the honey cells. They deposit it in the passage ways so they can fan over it in order to evaporate it, in the cooling process.

Ah bugger but then old mates ready to take a punt on it and big @JeffH weighs the odds and then agrees that it is indeed water?!

@TimG

If was a betting man I would load up on this one. We’re in a real dearth at the moment and also it only ever happens on days over 38deg. there is absolutely no colour to it whatsoever. I don’t want to open the hive to confirm when they are already working hard to maintain the temp. Last night by the time it had cooled back to 30 deg there was no sign of the water anymore. So my conclusion at this point is water. ( My wife has informs me that I have been wrong before though).

@JeffH

You’re probably right Tim, especially seeing that it was gone by the end of the day. I learned something new today. They must store it to use later on as water becomes scarce, especially seeing as they can’t gather it after dark. I see bees at my water chestnut plants really gulping it down when it’s hot.

People often ask me how the bees cope during hot weather. It’s hard to answer the question without going into great detail. I guess the short answer would be “they cope well as long as they have access to water”.

In regards to filling ff, going off photos I’ve noticed there’s no set rule in where the girls start. Coincidently while searching for the above I stumbled upon Jacky Boys photo of his flow frame:

I added the flow hive and that's what happened

Just in case anyone is really worried- here is what our bees had done in around 3 weeks time- and we didn’t do anything to the flow frames other than install them when the hive was booming: [image] [image]

Cheers @Semaphore (P.S. I’m originally from Adelaide too btw )

It clearly shows where they worked from outside-in. So therefore there is a possibility that it is nectar but then if they did ‘dump’ it there, why would they move it again if it’s actually the fullest cell?

I am 99.9% certain that in the last 4 days they had not stored anything in the flow frame cells as I have been checking religiously. Today was the first time I noticed and I believe it’s to do with the fact I recently made same major HVAC changes which I’ll post a topic about later and unfortunately the Marri flow is just a coincidental convenience.

Because of this, I personally think it’s water. They didn’t do this before the changes I made

Skeggers do you have a refractometer we can borrow so we can nip this in the bud? I have one for salinity I use for my marine tanks. Will that suffice for our purposes @ABB?