Sorry for the rubbish photo of the treeā¦ i took it a couple of days ago.
Have ordered the identifying eucalypts book from the library.
This creates a bit of a quandary because if you leave the excluder on over winter itās likely the queen will get trapped away from the cluster if they move up into the flow to access honey.
Itās an interesting problemā¦ Because you definitely donāt want brood in the flow frames either!
I left mine on this winter (if you can call it that in Perth) with a coverboard below the flow hive. They didnāt move honey down, nor did they start laying in the flow frames (presumably because they were full of honey).
We did our first brood box inspection on Sunday after adding the nuc frames 3 weeks ago. I was surprised to see that the bees hadnāt yet moved to the outside frames but put that down to the wet and cold weather we have had. There are plenty of flowers around and they look really happy and active. We saw egg cells and I am sure we saw the queen scurrying around cause it was bigger and longer than the others and didnāt look like a drone. We didnāt shake any bees off the frames, and should have, cause we really couldnāt see whether there was capped brood or not. Next time.
Any advice for these early days. We will not be putting the FF super on until 80% covered.
Dave your bees look like they are doing really well. Here in Pemberton I thought ours were looking a little slow after 3 weeks. Will do another check this weekend to really make sure. Have your bees moved to the outside frames as yet?
Hi. I inspected them on the weekend. Comb in all frames had been drawn and bees were busy on all 8 frames.
I decided to put the super on, so hopefully they take to it and all goes well.
Cedar from flow hive said in one of his live presentations his experince with this is to remove excluder and he hasnt seen the queen lay in flow frames yet. May be they a to deep or the queen is fussy to the size of the cell. But it will be an observation point for the future
I suggest searching the forum on the subject, there have been multiple posts with photos showing (dense) brood in the flow frames.
This was posted by user @FrankD in another thread.
Cheers for that i will ill search for the post
Looks like key factor is let the bees to make their own foundation to suit the larger drone cells. He didnt mention that. Thanks for the quidence as im letting my girls to build own comb to keep them busy. Thanks for the thread location
Iām not expecting to put a super on my 2 week old nuc this year 80% full or not I want a nice strong colony for winter and stores for the summer dearth. I had colonies expire in each of these times this year and will be prepared in future.
Seeing drones up here now and the pot colony has exploded this last week or so with the foundationless frames in the hybrid super being drawn rapidly, Iāve noticed the cell size is getting larger and larger as it spreads across the frame trying to keep up with the honey stores.
The super is bursting with bees now and am thinking about adding another brood box with the honey flow on now.
I see the FF getting nectar one day then empty the next and the bottom of the cells in the reservoir has drips hanging from it suggesting the cells are being used before completion of the cells. Itās unripe honey from the taste and texture and I think I need to rinse it out before it ferments :donāt know:
Looking forward to getting into the hives this weekend with fine weather. May even get the final nuc if im lucky.
I really do need to get rid of the weeds around here and tidy the place up but the bees are loving them along with the flowering vegetables in the patch that really should come out for new planting season. These bees are getting me in trouble and need them to start paying me protection moneyā¦ 
Iād wait and see on the 2 week old nuc.
You are definitely right to prioritise getting the hive strong.
I got my 4 frame nuc about the same time last year and i harvested about 40kg and left them with about 20kg of honey for the winter (they probs used 3kg of it).
If they grow fast give them space to grow into and see what happens once theyāve got 2 brood boxes.
I wouldnāt conclude that at all. The honey flow team have prefixed that comment with āwe believeā, I havenāt found any other reference that suggests providing foundationless frames so the bees can build drone comb stops them laying in the super.
My counter to that would be the queen will lay where there is space to lay if she wants to lay. If there arenāt empty cells available in the foundationless frames she will start laying in the flow frames.
Looks like drone cells, if so, freeze, dismantle and clean.
The post was demonstrating that the queen lays in the flow frames.
Definitely, the key words were ānot expectingā, Iāve seen a few supers prematurely put on colonies and the rule of thumb is not to rob in the first year. There are of course exceptions to the rule.
You, @Dunc , seem to be a minority with your 2 brood boxes here however it seems itās helped jump starting coming out of winter. Not sure I could handle climbing the roof to check the hive or just sit with the bees thoughā¦
No problem youāve got the essentials will post ID in morning, just got home after a 24hr work session to meet deadline but will let you know
###A droneā¦
###The entryā¦
###A guardā¦
The result; a work in progressā¦
All of these photos are from the hive inspection today. This is the first spring for the hive. They wintered well and have started strong. Iām still waiting on the first honey harvest thoughā¦hopefully soonā¦