Hello,
We are new beekeepers and this is our first flow hive. We recently added the super and I have noticed the honeybees are attempting to put propolis on the door where we open it to remove the honey. Do you have any advice?
Thank you.
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Hello Charlotte and welcome to the forum. I see you are in the UK and it is about 22 degrees C today. I would think that what you are experiencing is more to do with the time of year you have added the super-- if you are approaching the chillier fall weather now you will find the bees are going to put propolis everywhere that has any air gaps to seal their home up for the winter that is approaching. It is not recommended to leave your flow hive super on because they will likely put propolis in the flow hive system which is a big pain to get out and could interfere with normal operations. So my advice would be to remove the flow hive super and instead put a medium sized frame box on top if you are in a honey flow situation. Then the bees won’t mess up your flow super at all. Are all your frames in the single (assuming you are one brood box only?) fully built out and do any of them have honey on them (usually the outside edge frames are full honey frames) to get them through the winter? Tell us more about your weather if I’m not correct about your climate-- I’m across the pond in Ontario Canada and we have 29C temps today and by the middle of September temps will regularly be much cooler so I wouldn’t be adding my flow supers-- I added them months ago. If this is your first year beekeeping it is not unusual to not harvest honey the first year as the bees energy goes toward brood box build out. When did you get your bees? A photo of your hive(s) is always a great addition to your posts.
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Early Spring is when you should be fitting a Flow Super onto the hive and in your cooler Winter climate I would advise removing it for that period of the season. I agree with @Tim_Purdie completely, the bees are using the propolis to cut the cool air drafts.
Check with your local bee group and local bee keepers about their set ups, a second brood box or boxes dedicated to your bees for Winter honey stores. A photo or two can give us an excellent idea of what you have.
Cheers
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