Ah. that makes sense. I agree that I have seen/read where several had it reversed.
@NeuManaHui
I like the color of your hive. Is that natural aging or a stain?
1 Like
did it thanks . I hope it starts to get heavy. They were playing in there but have to check again after the rain leaves.
1 Like
Yes, you are correct that was the first picture and I looked and that realizing opps 
so I turn it after the photo was taken.
Hi Neumanahui. I lived in Kapa’a for 16 years on and off. I keep bees now in Australia. Kaua’i is always a home, even now I don’t have a place there any more.
Followed your bee journey a bit on this forum.
Good luck with your bees.
My bees in Oz are doing ok.
1 Like
Aloha mate , I am a little north of Kapa’a farming in Moloa’a. You can always come home. Australia must be awesome. No mites, no winter but you remember the rain and winds? At least now KCC finally has a Queen rearing program so there is hope for us new beekeepers. Learning alot from this great group. I finally have bees in my flow super just checked last night. Keep in touch.
2 Likes
Thanks it is the cedar hive with pure Tung oil . Plus it is weathered.
1 Like
I saw an article about a beekeeper in Sweden that decorated a box like a McDonald’s restaurant that made my kids laugh. So here in Canada the Tim Horton’s coffee chain is an icon so my daughter Riley decided to paint a Flow Hive in their colour scheme and logo. It is turning out great so I thought I’d share — its great to get the family involved early … and yes I know the super is on backwards, this was just for the camera that we had the two boxes on the stand backwards.
… and yes I know the super is on backwards, this was just for the camera that we had the two boxes on the stand backwards.
6 Likes
I love it! I’ld like to see a “House of Blues” next! 
1 Like
I bought the Flow Hive in winter time, joined the local beekeepers association, spent time waiting for bees to become available by painting the hive, and then went back to drinking beer while I waited.
The bees turned up a little while ago, 8 frames well stocked with everything, and I put the flow super on a few days ago when the rain stopped and the weather warmed up. It’s now being very busy.
The sun comes up over those distant trees and hits the hive early in the morning. The tall narrow magnolia on the left shades it from about 12 to 2pm and it then gets sun until night time. The brackets hold the frames and there’s a panel that forms a bench to the right of the hive, and another bench over the brackets to hold jars for harvesting. Under the bottom board I put some old washing machine parts as leveling feet.
This afternoon I got busy and made a window for the shade house which looks out at the entrance.
Over the back fence you can see a white bottlebrush in full bloom, then a red bottlebrush, and further over a tall white flowering eucalypt. Hopefully they foreshadow a good season.
I followed the advice about smooshing some wax into the flow frames to encourage and bees to get busy and today I notice the bees moving the wax around.
8 Likes
It looks good Kim, my only concern it that you might have put the super on before it was needed which is a fairly common mistake. I guess you have had some good Spring rain there so your hive should explode into the Spring/Summer. It looks like a great set up you have there and well thought out.
Cheers
1 Like
First signs of honey in the Flow super.
I got the bees early in October, it was a very full 8 frame brood box with lots of everything. The Flow super went on mid Oct and the bees started waxing it very soon after. I’ve been checking the activity through the windows every couple of days and today there was a difference.
My suburb is one central street and lots of cul-de-sacs running off it, and every street is surrounded by bushland. Coupled with all the gardens it seems there is a lot of feed around at the moment, although we really need rain.
5 Likes
It’s so exciting right? Whoop!
This is mine. just transferred the Nuc today. have set up some extra shade for midday sun as they were getting a bit hot
room for expansion
8 Likes
Exciting times!!! I remember seeing the first drops of nectar building up!! Enjoy!
2 Likes
The pic I posted recently with the first signs of honey in the flow super was two weeks ago. That pic shows frames 3 and 4. Here’s an update.
Frame 3 is being capped but it’s difficult to get the camera to see past the reflective plastic.
Frame 4 is fully capped apart from a few cells to the bottom.
Frame 1 through the side window shows a few cells being capped and the rest mostly filled but a few mm to go yet.
This is a new flow hive that I populated with bees on Oct 6th with the flow super going on a week later. I’m very impressed that the bees have waxed the new flow frames and have filled them to this point in only 2 months.
3 Likes
Hey Kim, for what it is worth the only way to know for sure if a frame is ready for taking the honey is to visually remove the frame from the super and see that at 80% of the cells have been capped and so the honey is ripe. If the honey isn’t ripe then it will ferment. Please only use the side window as a visual interest as it won’t tell you the frame is ready for taking the honey. Also it is common looking at the end of the frames it might look like the frame is capped, but again, that is only showing you a small part of the frame, not enough to know the frame is 80% capped.
I did an inspection of a friends Flow Hive today and found one frame had one side 80% capped and the other side there was nectar store but not a single cell was capped. He thought with what he could see all the frames were ready to extract but when we did an inspection visually he was really disappointed.
Cheers
1 Like
I totally agree with @Peter48.
The back window only gives a guide of what cells are capped. I have had frames fully capped apart from the outer few cells and vice versa. The only reliable way is to physically inspect each frame which isn’t a big hassle once you have done it a couple of times.
The side window is a bit of a gimmick. It doesn’t serve any real purpose apart from observing the bees going about their work.
Alan
3 Likes
Hey Kim, super exciting 
haha!! I prepared to harvest my Flow super in early September to find large areas uncapped. It had to be drained in any case since I have cold winters here so I let out small sections at a time and tested it. All good 
Still a good idea to look in first, and instead of taking the whole kit apart you could just take out one of the emptiest frames & move the other ones enough to see down. Those Flow frames are HEAVY when full 