I’m having that around me too, and I tasted the flowers myself to confirm they have nectar, but my new girls still want my syrup.
I’m considering just stopping the feed and make them work for the rent.
I’m jealous. No consistent eucalypts in flower around me and the the ones that are in flower have no nectar to speak of (okay, they have a sticky layer so there is something…just nothing like they can have when times are good)
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They always start slow, a branch here, a branch there, with early flowers lacking nectar. Then you wake up one day and say where all these flowers come from. I do at least.
Hi Adam. Cold winters down here in Bridgetown. Not here all the time. Hive wasn’t strong enough. Came down one weekend and just dead bees in the brood box!
Hi Zzzz. Are you in SW Western Australia too?
@jimh That makes more sense, I thought it had been knocked off. Did you restart it or something else?
SnowflakeHoney. I live in Perth, have TWO Flow hives. Today was devastated to discover wax moths have wiped out one of my broods totaly.
Three weeks ago, inspected the Flow hive and was very pleased with the production going on, planned on increasing the brood space by instaling a WSP 8 frame, three weeks later, bought the WSP box/frames and painted it ready for instaling, Check the hive again, and discovered grubs crawling in between the flow frames. BIG, BIG SHOCK. How the hell they could simply EXPLODE in three weeks is beyond me. Today arranged with a helper to strip the boxes and what we found inside really blew us away, every frame (10) in the brood box was totally destroyed, only a couple of corners still had wax and honey, other then that every frame was evicerated, hundreds of cocoons and grubs crawling all over the place. Even in the Flow frame elements attacking the honey and wax therein. All the brood frames are a total loss, will burn them when the opportunity arises, in the meantime they are in black plastic bags, sealed and lying in the sun where I hope they get baked thoroughly. The Flow frames are another kettle of fish entirely. The frames themselves appear O.K. but the grubs have gotten into the holes where the honey is stored, dug their way thru the wax sealing and went deep into the holes, problem now, is how do I clean them out without damaging the elements ??? Open to all suggestions.
I have another Flow frame hive right next to this contaminated one, though this one has TWO, 10 frame full size brood boxes and the Flow box on top. I believe the sheer numbers of bees within this setup has prevented the Moths gaining access, whereas in the ONE brood box, after a swarm last December was still regaining it’s numbers therefore was vulnerable to be overpowered by these moths. I intend to replace that set up with one full size 10 frame brood box and two WSP half size boxes with 8 frames per box. When they gains some numbers to defend themselves adequately, I will then replace the Flow hive on top. I can’t see that happening though, until next year. Very rarely are swarms available this time of the year, and even if they are, they will not be in any position to set themselves up for winter at such short notice.
Million dollar question though, How to clean the Flow Elements, any suggestions ???
I’m on my way to bed but will try and find time for a proper response tomorrow. In the interim:
https://www.honeyflow.com/faqs/all/minor-repairs-complete-flow-frame-re-assembly/p/180
I’m had to completely disassemble and reassemble the frames. It’s not that difficult.
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Ooh nice rant Itchy. 
Concrete, clay, bitumen and tin.
Plant more trees. Yesterday.
Wax moth. Yes, I’ve had strong healthy colony’s taken out by them even though they shouldn’t. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s our worst, most common bee pest here. In the Perth region that is. 
Yes they seem to overwhelm quickly once they take hold, fortunately I’ve not had supers on at the time.
Could your colony have swarmed prior to the infestation?
No screened bottom board detritus for me, and every time I’ve removed an entrance reducer I’ve found grubs occupying the corners so I’ve done away with them too. I also have one of those uv light/fan insect traps running 24/7 which is really cleaning up the moth population around here although possibly not good for the moth eating natives like bats and reptiles. No good with the mozzies either. 
You could freeze the Fframes to kill the larvae then put them into a strong colony to clean up. Problem is whether they have entered the trough or damaged the plastic Flow cells.
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Snowflake Honey, Thanks a million for that web address. Guess I’ll be making use of it very shortly. At the moment, there’s a free for all going on down my back yard, and bees from 5 K’s away are all struggling to get their fair share of the remains in my Flow Frames. Have cleaned them out of all larvae/worms/pupae, crikey there was lot of them, finicky job too, lucky I had a tiny needle nose pliers allowing access to pull them out. The worst was the webbing they had strung all over the elements preventing the bees from attacking them, they’d get caught in the webbing and the more they struggled the worse they got entangled and eventually died. Once I had removed all the Wax moth rubbish, there was a lot of excretia left behind, and this will need washing out, thus dismantling the frame to do so. There’s still a fair amount of wax left on the frames and quiet a bit of honey as well. I’ll leave that for the free loaders to clean up. All the Wax moth remains are currently swept up in a pile and I intend to set that alight when things clear up.
My main hive has also been inspected, and thankfully there’s no sign of any Wax moth infestation therein, excellent healthy hive. I started out with a full frame box, 10 frames therein, then later thought I should give them some more room, added on another full frame with 10 frames, on top of that, I put the Flow Hive. I thought they’d use the extra space for brood, turns out I was wrong, they chose to use it for honey storage, 10 full frames chock a block of honey. Removed that box and replaced with WSP half frames which I will use as Nuc for new hive in a couple of weeks. So have had busy morning, pissed off a lot of bees, got a few stings, but all in all, turned out better than I expected. I’d like to thank all the helpful advice I’ve received from my fellow Bee keepers on here, without that help, I doubt I’d be where I am today. Thanks people.
Skeggley, Ref the question of swarming. The effected hive did swarm last November, half moved out, and I believe it’s been struggling ever since to recover. Only had one brood box. For that reason, I believe, it was vulnerable and unable to defend it’self against the onslaught of the Wax moth. They did try, as I found remains of grubs rolled into balls and cover with persipolis near the entry, but the balls were bigger then the entry hole, so they couldn’t eject them.
The insect light/zapper sounds like a bloody good idea, think I’ll give that a try too. No Bats around here, (only clothed ones 
) plenty lizards though, but they stay in the garden, where the dogs give them a hard time. Mozzies ??? Despite having THREE ponds, all with fish, have never had any issues with them. YES, someone pointed out I can reuse the frames if I freeze them for three days. Which I will do. Haven’t seen any damage to the Flow cells at this stage. Guess that will become obvious once I strip them dowm, I’ll keep fingers crossed they’re O.K.
Thanks for your helpful advice, appreciated.
Get yourself a young Jack Russell, he/she will fix your rat problem pretty quick. The corse haired ones are the best at this.
Hi everyone!
I have a question. Do you collect pollen? How do you use it for human consumption?
Here is my couple of days worth of pollen collection for family needs.
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Quite odd. A strong hive should, in theory, defend itself well against wax moths. I was assuming that my bees were able to keep them at bay. At least that’s what I read everywhere.
The UV zapper running 24/7 sounds a bit over the top. I think it will kill a lot of collateral insects that you do not really want to kill.
Could it be that were you live, you have a lot of feral bees, and have an unusually high population of wax moths? Although wax moths are a beekeeping pest, they actually are a beneficial moth in the wild, and clean up a lot of abandoned and diseased comb, and make the hollow available again to be re-occupied.
So far, my experience with wax moths in three years has only been with the moths apparently roosting under the corflute. If I inspect every week or two, and kill any caterpillars, should that be sufficient to keep them under control?
BTW, the wax moth grubs anecdotally make a great fishing bait. Not that I fish.
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