I have tried NeverWet and found a few sellers with a google search. It isn’t cheap but reports are that it is effective when used on a smooth base surface, I applied it on painted sawn timber with only reasonable results.
Cheers
Hi Wasabi , fantastic set up my friend cudos to you lets hope your bear free now !!
Mark 
Here are our two hives newest is a 7 frame flow hive with and extra brood box and a new ceracell 10 frame super ,cant wait to see the results we get from that .
The larger flow hive is our original 6 frame with two extra brood boxes that also give us honey to spin 
I have also added a new ceracell 8 frame super to that and i think that will be filled first .
I will be checking the progress on the 20th December to see how they are going as they will have been on the hive a month by then .
Last year we had 80 kgs of honey from the original hive , bit slow to start this year as i added new flow frames you can see the bees are filling holes so wont be long before they are filling it as the rest of the hive is full Mark Kate and Kids Melbourne vic pic 2 is ceracell 8 frame and 10 frame pic 3 is original hive with ceracell under super pic 4 is new 7 frame flow hive with extra brood box and ceracell 8 frame super under flow super pic 1 is bees in new flow frames filling holes with wax ready to add nectar
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Here is my winter setup this year for my five langstroths. I have 2 inches foam under the lid, upper entrance, 1 inch foam on three sides, with tarpaper in the front to soak up some rays. All are sitting on slatted racks above SBB, with the slider closed. 1 of the hives is on its own, the other 2 are side by side to share some heat.
Hope to do better than my 20% survival rate last year!
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Hiya @mark39, that’s a lot of brood boxes for your area and isn’t the Flow super on backwards?
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Hi Skeggley, thats our first hive your looking at and its hard up against our chook pen so i turned the super around so we can harvest , it is a lot of brood boxes but two of them are now full of honey also Which we are going to take out and spin next week , we hadn’t split the hive as we didn’t have another hive for them to go in so we thought we’d add another brood box to stop them from swarming which it did .
Now we have the 7 frame u p and running we will be shifting the original hive into the main garden area also
kind regards
Mark Kate and Kids
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Hi Mark,
I think I remember you had a pretty strong nectar flow last season, so the Ceracell rounds should work well in your area. I had one rounds box filled in just 2 weeks recently, another took almost 2 months.
I’m just working on replacing the white Ceracell rings with bamboo strips to eliminate trading in throw away plastic. We’ll see how that goes.
Hi Webclan , yes last year was fantastic but made the mistake of leaving the super on instead of taking it off and storing it 
hence humidity in hive and wet winter combined to create mould build up in flow frames towards the rear of the flow super !! so took them out and ran them through the dishwasher several times …luckily wife was out so im still alive . will post results with ceracell’s let me know how you go with the bamboo strips …very exciting enjoy the flow
mark kate and kids
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Haha, prob wouldn’t have done the dishwasher run, rather hand clean. But if it worked without clogging the filters with wax, good on you.
I left my flow supers on over winter and there seemed to be enough bees to keep things clean fortunately. Around here, I just can’t figure out to reduce the bees down to one broodbox, as they keep filling the flow super.
I’m glad I can successfully take off any additional supers.
The bees do fill the outside frames in the broodbox with honey though over winter, but that’s the only sign they even change in winter.
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Soooo, how’s the cathedral hive going?
And I still think your staircase is very cool.
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The cathedral was a bit slow to get going this year; I’m not sure if they are large enough to make it through our winter; especially given that it hasn’t even officially started yet and it already looks like this:
Here is the hive in the yard. I mounted it on a single steel post concreted into the ground. It is really nice to work on, and with the single post and a little sticky tanglefoot it is easy to keep the ants out as well. I was worried it might be a bit floppy on a single post, but it is quite stable.
Another interesting issue is the bees do not want to draw out the upper portion of the hexagon. They nicely draw out the bottom, but won’t start at the top with waxed starter strips. On a couple of occasions they started building comb upward from the middle bar.
In the spring I will add foundation to the upper portion of the hexagon on a few frames to get them started and see if they will draw the rest from starter strips.
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Bunnings has the spray cans.
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Wanting to share, I’m coming back to the forum. been away for a several months.
A friend has asked me to set up some hives on their property, which is a campground. There wanting a tax exemption using agricultural exemption in Texas. There needing 12 hives set up, doing so I decided to set them up in an arc so I can work the hives from the backside. We’ll see how well facing north entrance works. I know you’re not supposed to do it but will see over time.
I was wanting to have the entire set up act like a sundial as well. Giving people a unique way of looking at it once they walk up. It’ll be a surprise that the hive set up will tell you the time of day as well.
By the way, we will be setting up the Flow Hive 2 for all 12, hot dipping wax all of them soon as well as painting the roof of each one a different color. Adding a nice park like setting.
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A couple of pics of my hives.
This long hive is designed to take six flow frames once the bees fill out a minimum of eight brood frames.
The front, back, sides and follower boards have removable covers to allow for a visual inspection through plexiglass without disturbing the bees.
A pic of my FlowHive.
which I have since moved up the hill next to the long hive.
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Wow Marty. What an idea! Sundial bee farm! Wow
Is it really possible?
My hives have just only landed here 5 days ago on Monday. So I’m probably the newest beek here
Here’s my setup:
I still don’t know if this is the best setup for them. I’m at literally equator and the hives are facing about 30° North.
Swarm regards
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for you, facing north shouldn’t be a problem at all or anywhere you’re at zero I just did some additional reading, the issues with it facing north is more of the north when blowing into the hive. Again you don’t have that kind of problem
You could have your hives facing either North or South with no disadvantage in either direction. Your hives are looking good.
Cheers
I see. So, if I’m at the southern hemisphere, I shouldn’t be facing it to South?
I wish, I knew I would ask you local beekeepers. I’m not even sure facing north for me is wrong. Other than the when someone mentioned before. That I get, if the hive is getting full sun I think that’s the most important thing
I think it’s to maximise the sun on the front of the hive in wintertime so Southern Hemisphere facing north and northern hemisphere facing south.
I have hives facing north, west and east and have seen a wild tree colony facing south so really I think provided it gets plenty of sun it’s not a major issue.
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