Pull it out with a pair of pliers after you’ve slowly loosened it with a steel ruler.
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I check my core flute daily. One time I was away for 3 weeks it was a tad stuck, but ok. It was in the bottom slot at the time.
Here we check the board often to manage SHB. The reverse picnic table cloth works a charm. Thanks Cedar for the tip.
I hardly catch any any more, and have the apithor.
Have a feeling my bees are also doing a stirling job chasing and eliminating.
Watched my girls chasing a beetle in the roof after I took it off yesterday. They are relentless. Almost felt sorry for the beetle.
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I have not seen a problem with this but i do regularly pull them out and squash any hive beatle i find.
I do have the pull outs covered with plastic table cloth with fibres up to help catch hive beetle as suggested by the flow team. Per haps this helps.
I have never seen bees get down into this area.
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I’ve read that some bees are just more serious propolisers, and also that the amount & stickiness can vary with your local trees. So I can imagine some pull outs might get stuck no matter how often you pull 'em out!
Many beekeepers don’t bother with the screened bottom boards & just have a solid bottom. @Dee recently posted about her setup in which she places the brood box onto a lid, then slides it forward so the front edge of the brood box is hanging just over the edge of the lid, creating an entrance _under_the box! That was novel to me. Apparently it helps with keeping wasps out too.
Anyway, I had my Flow setup with the SBB in use last season & had bought another setup with one. It got sticky at times but never stuck. So I’ll be working with the SBB system for the foreseeable future - and might modify the grooves with something like paint or sealant that could make both sliding & cleaning easier. Any thoughts?
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I think the SBB is more trouble than it is worth, for me. I am going back to solid bottoms for my non-Flow hives, and I will just leave the slider in the top slot of the Flow hive. That way, the bees can treat it like a solid bottom, cleaning house as normal. SBBs have resulted in ant nests and debris accumulation under the hive (on or in cinder blocks) which is very hard to clean up without moving the whole hive. Nice idea, but doesn’t really fit with the way I need to keep bees. 
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Mouse hideaway found under mine!
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Hi there - so the ruler and the pliers did the trick - but there were about 10 -15 bees buzzing out after it. There must a good sized hole in there somewhere. also a Living wax moth larvae came out as I pulled the core flute as well. Just one - and I would assume it’s not infested because of how strong the colony is at the moment. I will do an inspection in next few days just to check on a few things and look for any more. I slid the core flute back in - but put on the top slot so it keeps the bees in. I thought given some people have solid bottoms I figured this was kind of ok? I will pull it out more regularly from now on though.
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Just had a nice thought about SBB:
Bee breeders breed for hygiene, SBB trains beeks in hygiene.
At least in SHB and wax moth areas.
Coz if you don’t keep that core flute clean, you will breed problems. And get the board stuck.
I am new to beekeeping and never had a solid bottom hive. How do you keep it clean to eliminate breeding grounds for pests?
Around 20 of my bees go in the ‘back door’ each afternoon to salvage what they want off the board, and chase unwanted beings like ants etc.
You don’t need to, because the bees do it very well. If they can reach it, they will throw out any junk. With the Flow SBB, they can’t reach the slider in the lower slot, so they don’t clean it. If you leave it in the upper slot, although they propolis it in place, they do keep it clear of junk.
Hi all update on my situation on the bottom screen mesh and core flute. - Although I thought I had solved it - have made it “worse” . (although that’s my interpretation - not the bees). After putting the core flute in the top slot for a few days - I checked on it this morning and so many bees came out with it I’ve obviously created a bigger hole in the bottom mesh when trying to pull the core flute when it was stuck. Now we aren’t talking about the odd bee anymore it’s 10s if not hundreds hanging around the bottom and and on the core flute. I gently shook them off after checking the queen wasn’t on there (got stung in the process) and have now temporarily blocked up that slot with the core flute and a brick. Will now go to hardware and get some small wire mesh to block that slot, after putting the core flute back in the bottom slot to pick up and check for debris occasionally. ever learning. Hoping this will be the final solution for a while. Am going to be harvesting some honey soon and kind of don’t want bees coming and going from the back while doing it!
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The removable coreflute insert has become warped and stuck. Can anyone think of a way to get it out without disturbing the bees? I tried with pliers but started to pull the whole hive over so stopped sharpish!!!
Is it in the upper slot? If so, they have probably propolised it to the screen. The best way to free it up is with a long metal rule (ruler) - I have one 36" which works perfectly. Just insert it above the slider and ease it from side to side across the whole width. If you don’t have one, and don’t want to spend $5 to get one from a hardware store, you can try with the Flow key. Doesn’t work quite as well, but it will work if you are patient and careful.
If you damage the slider, it is very easy to cut a new one from Coreflute or Coroplast which you can buy in most art supply shops and some office suppliers too.
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Many thanks. it’s in the top slot so I’ll probably leave it for the winter now.
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One of my hives is decidedly more grouchy than the others. I assume they must have had a coup and replaced the Italian queen and the new queen mated with Africanized bees. Besides the tendency to come at me if I so much as look at their hive, I noticed that they keep gluing the corflute in place. I have it in the bottom slot as weather is still warm here (SW USA). To inspect/clean it, I have to use my hive tool to break the propolis followed by pliers and a lot of force to get it out. Is this behavior typical of Africanized honeybees? I’ve read they are more hygenic so maybe this is part of that. Or are they trying to tell me something (like close that hole in the bottom of our home)? I don’t see this behavior on either of my other two Italian hives.
One of my two “survivor mutt” hives also glues the slider on…
By “mutt”, do you mean hybrid Africanized?
I don’t think there are reports of Africanized bees in @Eva’s area (Pennsylvania), yet…
One of my Italian hives is really into propolis as well, the other two just put it in gaps. I guess they all differ a little.
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